


The Heart of the Maze

by northerntrash



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Theseus and the Minotaur AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-01 04:30:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4005907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northerntrash/pseuds/northerntrash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is the great beast that lives in the labyrinth beneath King Thror's palace? Some say it is a serpent, drawn from the depths of the oceans; others that he is a God trapped in the form of some monster from another age. All the people of Crete know is the guilt that they carry for every victim sent into Smaug's dark tunnels, the screams of both man and beast echoing through the very stone of the island.</p><p>Bilbo, sent as a tribute, one more sacrifice for Thror's greatest regret, knows nothing but that he will never return, but he's determined to find out, and to find a way to save them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my second entry for the Hobbit Big Bang 2015! There have been loads of amazing things appearing for this - please go and support all the hard-working artists and authors that you can! I've had a great time writing this, and have some lovely artists, who I would like to say a big thank you to for signing up to this fic! Links to their work will go up as they appear. :) 
> 
> As always, feel free to come and chat to me on [tumblr](http://northerntrash.tumblr.com/) .

_Once, a King came, and he was a great King._

_His people flourished on their island, their shores white-gold sand and their seas the bright azure of a hot summer sky: underneath the relentless sun their crops grew tall and their sons grew strong, and all was well._

_His island, his Kingdom, was called Crete, and its name was known throughout the world: they spoke of the place as far as the fertile flood plains of Egypt, as far as the rolling hills of the great Babylonian Kings; the traders of Crete swapped fine cloth and worked metal with the traders of Phoenicia, collecting spices and dyes from people whose names have long since been forgotten by the turning sands of time._

_And the King sat in the white stone of his palace, surrounded by the silver of a thousand great craftsmen, his line secure in his children, and should have been content._

_But he was not._

_His name was Thror, and he was not a bad man: those that do the world the most harm rarely are. Criminals can be kindly to their kin, with hearts as broad and encompassing as the starlight for those that they love, as was Thror; he was a good father, and compassionate to his people. None went hungry in his Kingdom, nor was there any child without a roof over their heads. But though he had so much, he longed still for more._

_He put swords in the hands of his traders, spears in the grip of his fishermen, and the women wept to see their husbands and sons trained as soldiers, crying to the Gods in despair as their hearts grew hard with the brutalities of war. Once they had been a peaceful people, but now sons were taken from their mother’s breasts and taught to kill, and daughters grew up knowing fear of these violent men, who would return home so different than the young boys they had once played with so carelessly in the turning sea foam of their fair shores._

_Thror’s armies spread far and wide, yet still the King was not satisfied: spoils came from across the world, gold and gems and the dented swords of a hundred defeated Kings, but it was never enough to fill the strange and aching fear in his chest, the fear that his name was as transient as the lives of the flies that settled on the dead left in the wake of his armies. Who would remember him, long after he was dead, if he did not make sure that his name was carved into the stone of a thousand cities?_

_And so the armies continued on their bloody path, and one by one each Kingdom fell to the sound of the Cretan drumbeats at their gates: some fought back, and punishment was swift and brutal. Most simply surrendered, knowing well the value of their lives._

_Thror read his reports, sent by the great naval ships that had once been simple merchant vessels, and grew angry. For with each conquered land his army grew smaller, men lost each time, and still he believed that it wasn't good enough. So he retreated into his private rooms, and turned his hand to strange and dark tasks, the windows covered and the flickering candlelight dim, the ringing sound of a forger’s hammer echoing throughout the palace._

_Far from Crete, the armies of their strange King reached a small city, an infant in history, young and full of promise. One day this city would grow and spread its own military wings: it would take freedom and it would claim countless lives, but it would also create, and it would craft, marble and bronze bright enough to spark envy and awe in all but the hardest hearts. It would think, and it would change the way that the rest of the world thought too, and its name would long be remembered. But for now it was a small place, with simple and fair folk who cared more for the sunlight than for forged swords, cared more for a full plate of food than shifting the political balance of the world. A child, still, with a fair and wise ruler, and its name was Athens._

_Belladonna had taken the throne from the father when he had passed away only the year previously, and ruled with a singular assurance and strength: but when she had seen the advancing armies of the Cretans, she had ordered the city guards to lay their weapons down. They had not been trained for war, and she remembered their families, and would not see their blood spill if she could help it. She surrendered, not knowing what would come next, and hoping that her people would forgive her for not fighting._

_She was young, and she was beautiful, and as she stood on the road that lead into their city she held her head high, and the armies stopped._

_Her crown was in the dust before her, but there had never been a woman so noble, from the line of her jaw to the straightness of her spine, and her eyes pierced each man that she looked at with such sorrow that they felt, for the first time in so many years, their own grief at what they had done._

_And so Thror’s armies did not sack her city: Belladonna had done nothing more than look at them, but it had been enough to remind them of every feeling they had forced to keep hidden away, in order to carry on._

_It was enough._

_They did not come closer, and they sent word to their King, and Belladonna prepared for the worst: her head, she thought, would be the least that Thror might claim. But then something strange happened, something that no priest or prophet could understand, something that not even the great oracles at Delphi or Dodoma could decipher: the armies left. They returned to Crete, and stowed away their swords, and picked up their fishing rods again, not the same men that they had been, but desperate to try and be themselves again._

_And soon after, a missive came to Athens._

_The Cretans would not return, they promised, as long as the Athenians did one thing for them, one small thing: every seven years, a boat would come, and Athens would send the strange island Kingdom seven young men, and seven young maidens. For this small price, they swore in the name of the Gods, they would have peace._

_There was no choice to be made: the decree was not a question but an order, however it had been phrased, and with a heavy heart Belladonna sent back her reply, her seal in wax signalling her agreement._

* * *

Many years had passed since that long-ago day, and the city of Athens continued to grow under the wise hand of their Queen, as strong and sensible as she had ever been. But today, Bilbo watched his mother, and wished that there was something that he could do.

He had been born long after Belladonna had made her agreement with Thror, but he had grown in the shadows of it, knowing the reason why her eyes grew tired every seven years, as the months began to count down to the arrival of that Cretan ship, the constant shade of her decision weighing heavier on her with each passing year.

“Are you well?” he asked, even though he knew the answer: as she had done every time he had asked that week, she offered him a small smile and a nod, though her eyes remained fixed on the horizon. They could not see the sea from the great halls of their home, but she stared with enough determination that he could almost believe that she could, that she was already looking at that ship, with its great white sails and bright flag.

It had been due to arrive yesterday, but that meant nothing: the sea was an ally to no one, and brief delays like this were inevitable.

He glanced out the window too, but rather than out to the sky he found his eyes drawn to the great marketplace of the city, where already people were beginning to gather. Every year his mother seemed to leave the draw later than the last time, as if it was growing harder and harder for her to do it.

Bilbo could believe that that was the case: with each name that she drew from the great urns her shoulders seemed to slump, her head bow lower, and her smile further away.

She had not been the same, he knew, since his father had died two years ago, and this would be the first draw that she would have to go through with without his comforting presence at her side. Bungo had been a rock to Belladonna on the years of the draws, and Bilbo was not entirely convinced that he was up to the task of comforting her. What could he say, to make her feel better? That she had done the only thing that she could have done in the situation? That she had saved countless lives, that she had secured their city, all for such a small sacrifice – just fourteen youths, every seven years.

Two dead for every year that Athens remained standing was a small cost, but he was not young enough not to understand that those two lives weighed on Belladonna’s shoulders, keeping her awake at night, her dreams full of screams.

For they must be dead – there was no doubt of that. No one knew what happened to the sacrifices, but they never returned, and nothing was ever heard from them again. It was a foolish hope, to believe anything else.

From the shore came the ringing sound of horns, announcing that the ship had been spotted, and Belladonna exhaled, a sharp noise in the quiet of the room as the horns died away.

“Come,” she said, and her hand was soft as she pushed Bilbo’s curls from his face, already growing too long again. “It must be done.”

He rested a hand on her shoulder for a brief moment, and then offered her an arm, helping her down the staircase, and then out of the gates and into the street. The bright sunlight caught the copper of her crown and the silver in her hair, and he smiled at her, a little sadly, as they made their way through the strangely subdued streets to the marketplace.

This was the second reaping since he come of age: the first he barely remembered. He had not known any of the youths drawn that year, but his own fear at being picked had burnt those names into his mind, though every other part of the day had been a blur. He still spoke those names to himself sometimes, when he could not sleep, softly and under his breath, wondering what they would have been and what they could have done with the lives that were taken from them. It was one of the few things that all Athenians could all do: the names of the victims chosen might as well have been carved into the flesh of every one of them, for it felt now that every family had lost a child at one draw or another.

His mother carried all of those names, he knew: one of her brothers had been selected in the first year, and she still wore the bronze pendant that had once been carried around his neck.

He could barely find the space in his mind to be afraid this year, too busy helping his mother onto the dais and worrying about her, trying to work out how to comfort her in his mind: it was only when she pulled the first name from one urn that he remembered to be scared.

_“Adaldrida, daughter of Flambard.”_

The maidens, first, and something unpleasant seemed to weigh on his chest as families began to silently weep, each one chosen in turn. He had to look away from his cousin when Primula’s name was read aloud: Drogo’s eyes were bright with an anger and grief that Bilbo simply did not know how to comfort.

_“Dora, daughter of Marroc.”_

The cries were growing louder now, and it wasn't just the family of those chosen: this was a collective grief, one which they all shared, and now those who would call themselves enemies in other years held on to each other now, drawn together by this ineffable sense of community; strangers wept on each other’s shoulders as children they didn't know slowly walked through the crowd to the front, people touching their shoulders and arms as if in comfort, parting around them as if those children ( _and that one, she must only have just come of age, look how frail and small she is, how slender and weak her arms are, look at the terror in her eyes and look, Bilbo, because one day it will be you that has to do this and if your mother can look every one of them in their eyes then so can you_ ) were boats parting the waves.

_“Lily, daughter of Saradas.”_

Belladonna went through the motions with the grace and dignity that she had always worn, though there was a slowness to her movements now that had not been there seven years ago. She was growing older, Bilbo realised, and more tired with it, and he felt all of a sudden as if he might cry too, for how low they had been brought, for their hopelessness, for their loss.

_“Wiseman, son of Rorimac.”_

Her voice was steady, no quaver to her tone indicating how close he knew she was to weeping; she was always so strong, and he often found himself wondering how he would ever learn to become as strong as she was, when he took her place on the throne, a day which he dreaded.

_“Olo, son of Marcho.”_

Bilbo only really became aware that there was something wrong when his mother paused: he glanced across at her, but her face was still, and grave, and as if in slow motion, he watched her mouth open, her lips pale and dry in the summer heat.

“Bilbo, son of Belladonna,” she said, and there were murmurs through the crowd.

 

* * *

He wasn’t sure what happened for the rest of the day: he remembered his grandmother crying, and his mother beating her hands against the colonnade of their courtyard until they bled, but they seemed strangely distant to him, lost in some fog of confusion. This couldn't really be happening, surely? He wasn't really going to have to get on that boat, wasn't really being lead down to the docks, wasn't really standing in line with the other sacrifices, listening to his mother bid them farewell.

She told them that their names would always be remembered, and that they were loved, so very loved, but it seemed to him to be nothing more than the wind in the olive tree that grew outside his window; insubstantial, barely there.

It was only as she embraced him, the sea rough against the port, the salt spray sharp against his cheek, that he really understood that he was going.

“I love you,” Belladonna told him, and she didn't make him promise to come back.

He boarded the boat without saying anything more to her, though he would come to regret that in the weeks on the sea, when the storms raged against the side of the ship and the other sacrifices offered prayers to any God above that might have been listening. The youths that they had sent, each and every seventh year, had never come back, and he had heard every possible rumour about what happened over on Crete. From the men that ferried the ship, from the merchants and sailors that landed there, from the old men and women that still muttered under their breaths about the time that Thror’s armies had come and then had left again.

They knew little about the island, other than its wealth, which was beyond compare: even though Thror’s armies had retreated after a time, they had taken enough gold with them to set up the Kingdom for centuries to come. The trading was always good: merchants always sold their wares for a high price there, their spices and dyes and fabrics from far off lands far beyond Bilbo’s knowledge, and were traded in turn for fine silks, and silver goods. It was those that came in turn to Athens, in their own time, along with the stories of a fine palace sat high on the hill, of a strong and beautiful royal line, of temples made of strong white stone, in which the Gods rested with plentiful sacrifice.

But what were those sacrifices?

What happened to those Athenians, barely more than children?

The tales told were all of those tributes being met by grand men, of carts with wheels of gold: the sailors who dropped them off said that they were greeted as if they were royalty, bowed to as if there were no one more important in this world. But after that, the stories dried up: they were lead up to the palace, were left in the care and goodwill of the King, and were never seen again.

That didn’t stop the rumours from circulating. Some said that they were sacrificed to the Gods, that it had only been human blood that had given Thror enough divine favour to spread his power so very far. Even worse stories told that it was Thror himself who consumed the victims, that every seventh year he would dance naked through the palace with the blood of innocents smeared across his face, that it was devouring the strength and youth of Athens that kept him so fierce, even now, in his silver years.

It was on these stories that Bilbo dwelled on the long journey, though he tried his hardest to put them from his mind, so that he might get to know the other Athenians, growing closer to these men and women that he otherwise might never have met. The weeks passed slowly, and as they grew closer their whispers of fear grew louder, and he heard more than one rumour that he never had before.

Primula tried talking to him about it, at one point during the journey. He had always liked her, despite them having rare enough occasion to meet, and had looked forward to her joining their small family, so that he might have a chance to get to know her better. The opportunity for that, at least, had come, even though it was in the worst of situations.

She was a pretty thing, all things told, with the dark hair of her family. It fell in gentle curls around her face, currently dry and a little wayward from the salt water and wind, but even the redness in her cheeks from the harsh weather could not distract from her charm. He himself had often wished, in his younger years, for the sort of gentle beauty that she had her family possessed. Despite his royal blood, his line had always strayed towards the plain: round-cheeked and good natured, copper-brown hair and eyes to match. But the older he had become the less he had come to care for such things, and the more he valued the good fortune he had been blessed with, the wise head his mother had passed on, the patience he had found in watching his father.

“Do you think any of those stories are true?” she asked him, staring quietly down at her lap. She had loved to draw, and now her hands moved as if they were still holding a stylus. Bilbo couldn’t help but wonder whether she would ever be given the chance to draw again.

Bilbo bit his lip, and watched the horizon.

“I doubt it,” he said, honestly. “I think if the King of Crete danced around in nothing but the blood of children, then there would be a lot more stories, and they’d have traveled a lot further.”

She laughed, then, though it wasn't a particularly happy sound.

“And besides,” he said, trying to be comforting, but not entirely sure that he was being successful. “Tales are always exaggerated, aren't they?”

She nodded, staring out at the slow bronzing of the horizon, growing

“Let’s talk of something brighter!” Bilbo declared, as the sun sank a little lower down the horizon, and they spoke instead of the betrothal between Primula and Drogo, a topic which made her laugh and blush all at the same time. They did not touch on the fact that Prim would never be given the opportunity, now, to wed Bilbo’s cousin. Bathed in the orange light of the setting sun, this was not a moment for sadness.

“And what of you?” she asked, when Bilbo’s teasing grew too much. “Much has been said about the heart of the eligible Prince of Athens, and his prospects. Apparently there is no young girl nor youth that has caught your eye, but I refuse to believe that there is no one at all who you have never been at least a little interested in.”

Some unspoken distance between them had been shed, in this brief moment of levity. No one had ever asked Bilbo that question before, apart from his mother, and now it was his turn to be embarrassed. He smiled, and rubbed his hair, and she laughed, a genuine and light hearted sound that drew the attention of the rest of the Athenian group, who moved a little closer at the sound, clearly listening. He perhaps should have been a little more embarrassed at that, but he couldn't bring himself to be. He smiled at his comrades.

“No, Prim,” he replied, only a little dishonestly. “There has never been anyone that, well, that is to say…”

“Oh come on,” said another, perhaps a little cheekily. “You can tell us. We’re not exactly going to tell anyone, are we?”

“Well, not now,” said someone else, and just then the brief moment of happiness was shattered.

“Aye,” Bilbo agreed, with a sigh.

There was a moment of silence, and Primula stared once more at the sun.

“Sorry,” she said, when the pause was stretching a little too thin. “It isn't really our place to ask, is it?”

Bilbo rested a hand on her elbow, squeezing a little in comfort.

“I am no longer a Prince, after all,” he told her and the rest. “We are all the same now, and that makes you all my kin, in a strange way.”

They glanced at each other, and Bilbo swallowed.

“And I know that we are all a little afraid of what is to come,” he continued, his voice a little thin. “I know that I certainly am, after all. But I will do my best, I promise you, to protect you all. I don’t know what I can do, but I will try.”

It didn't seem to comfort them all that much, but they did move a little closer, the group huddling together for some brief comfort in the cold spray coming off the seas, still running rough against the side of the ship. He knew full well that there would not be much that he would be able to do against whatever they were going to meet on the island, nothing that so many Athenians before him had failed to do, but he felt that he had to promise, for all that it might come to nothing.

A sailor called, at the other end of the ship, the call for land on the horizon.

None of the other Athenians made to look, but Bilbo stood, and turned. In the distance was the low bulk of an island, long and ominous in the growing dark of the evening.

They were here.

 

* * *

They were unloaded onto the docks quickly, and with little ceremony – Bilbo had expected more, if he was going to be honest with himself, perhaps some welcome or celebration, or at least the address of some person to greet them. But instead they stood, huddled together, waiting for someone or for some indication of what they should do, or where they were to go.  The sun had long set: despite how close the island had looked earlier, it had taken hours for them to reach it, and now it was pitch black, the night set fully in, and the sailors were quick to unload both their cargo and their passengers, casting uncertain eyes around them as if they were afraid that something might leap from the dark and pull them down into the sea. There was no moonlight, the stars hidden by the heavy cloud, and he shivered in the strangely warm breeze that threatened to bring a storm later in the night.

“Hey!” Bilbo called out, as the sailors, back on their ship, began to slip back below the deck. “Where are we supposed to go?”

They didn't answer him: they simply glanced between themselves and disappeared from sight.

Prim took his hand in the dark, and he cleared his throat.

“Well,” he said, to his assembled kin. “I suppose, then, that we should-”

“Welcome,” came a low and unhappy voice from the darkness. “I am a little later than I intended.”

Bilbo squinted into the darkness, but could not make out the owner of the voice. There was a huff of laughter, and then a candle was lit, sheltered by a hand, and for a moment it illuminated the face of a man, tall and a little gaunt, frowning at the group of them, looking terribly unhappy.

“I’m Bard,” he told them, glancing up at the dark sky. “King Thror’s estate manager. He’s sent me here to collect you all.”

Prim’s hand gripped his a little tighter.

“Where are you taking us?”

He looked at her, a little confused, his frown deepening even further.

“To the palace,” he answered. “Where else would I be taking you?”

 “What is going to happen to us?” another girl asked, but Bard just shook his head, refusing to answer. He gestured for them to follow him instead, and after a moment of hesitation they did, knowing full well that there wasn’t any other option for them. He lead them to a cart (certainly not plated in gold even in part, let alone in full) and loaded them up, passing thick wool blankets around for them to tuck themselves under to ward off the chill of the night. Bilbo hesitated for a moment, the last to get on, thinking of the strangely sad and perfunctory welcome that Bard had offered to them, before climbing up next to Bard at the front instead, sneaking one of the spare blankets to wrap around his shoulders. Bard looked at him a little strangely, but did not protest.

They took a long and slow route through the town, the quiet mules leading the cart through the meandering streets with little protest. Indeed, Bard seemed to have to do little to keep them on their course, as if they had walked this path so many times that they could walk it in their sleep – or, in this case, in the heavy night.

“What is the palace like?” he ventured, after a moment, and Bard glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. Bilbo just stared back. “Well, you work there, don’t you? Who is better to ask than the estate manager of the place?”

Bard huffed something that might have been a laugh, but he didn’t answer Bilbo’s question. They pulled out of the town, and out onto a slightly wider path that started to wind upwards, curving through the gentle foothills at the base of the cliffs. Bilbo couldn’t see where it was going, but there was a glow on the clifftop a little further away, just beyond what he could distinguish. The palace, he was sure.

He turned around, to see his comrades, most of whom were drifting off under the warmth of the blankets and the dark of the evening, the rocking of the cart a lull against the distant sound of the sea.

“Do you know why we’re here?” Bilbo asked, his voice quiet.

Bard sighed, then, keeping his eyes on the path in front of them, barely visible in the dark.

“You’re not going to tell me why, are you?”

Bard glanced at him, his eyes shadowed.

“Why do you think that you are here?”

There was a silence between them, one which he didn’t know how to break, too quiet and singularly significant by far. The cliffs rose above them, a dark and dramatic shadow against the grey-black of the sky. What Gods were watching, Bilbo wondered – who was up there, in the fathoms of the stars, keeping an eye on the movement of such insignificant men?

“I don’t know,” Bilbo replied finally, completely honestly. “I can’t even imagine what the King wants with us.”

Bard opened his mouth, as if he were about to say something more, but stopped himself at the last moment.

“It is not for me to say,” he answered, eventually, as they turned another corner.

“Look there,” Bard said instead, pointing out in front of them. “The palace.”

Bilbo’s eyes widened at the sight.

There is was indeed, just above them still, lit with what must have been a hundred torches, flaming bright against the night, gold and bronze firelight fighting the dark back and illuminating the great columns of the place, the vermilion paint, the huge golden doors that looked more like they should belong on a temple for the Gods, not on a dwelling for mere men.

“It’s beautiful,” he said, without quite meaning to, and Bard hummed a low sound of agreement.

He hadn’t expected it to look like that. He’d thought of it as intimidated, as threatening, as something to be afraid of, not as some great beacon of light against the creatures of the night, not as some place that made you feel, well… safe.

As they drew closer a group standing in front of the doors came into view, and he reached behind him, shaking the first Athenian he could reach.

“Wake them all up,” he whispered. “We’re here.”

One man strode down and away from the rest as the cart drew up to the front steps, his arms opening wide as if in welcome. He was a great, barrel-chested man, his shoulders only just starting to slump in age, his hair a thick mane of silver down his back, far longer than anyone would have worn it in Athens. His eyes were lined with sorrow, but there was a kindliness to his smile that put Bilbo immediately at ease, despite himself.

“Welcome,” he called out, his voice deep, as Bilbo stepped down from the cart, keeping one eye on his kin. “Welcome to the palace of Thror, and the island of Crete, jewel of the sea!” He smiled at them again, a little warmer than even before. “I am King Thror, and welcome to my home.”

To Bilbo’s surprise, he dropped into a bow, the great golden crown he wore across his brow glinting in the torchlight.

“Greetings, King Thror,” he replied, bowing even lower than the King, keeping one eye on him even as he did so. “And may I speak for all of my friends when I say that it is our honour indeed to be welcomed in person by you.”

Thror straightened up, and beamed at him, though there was some strange kind of sadness about his eyes that Bilbo couldn’t quite put his finger on.

He did not ask their names, but instead launched into a long speech about how pleased he was that they had all reached the shores of Crete safely. Bilbo only paid attention for the first few minutes, his gaze drifting instead to the others, still waiting at the top of the stairs, in front of the doors. Thror paused at one moment to introduce them his kin, letting Bilbo put names to their faces.

His son, Prince Thrain, a tall and fierce looking man, broad across the shoulder and frowning down at them. Then there was Thrain’s children: first Prince Thorin, whose gaze was fixed firmly on the distance, at the sea, indeterminate in the darkness but for the sound of it, a quiet and ever-present roar. Prince Frerin was smiling at them, his hair tied back in a long braid, and to his right was the Princess Dis, beautiful in the glow of the torchlight. Her husband and children stood just behind her, quiet and still and almost in the shadows.

Then Thrain’s wife stepped forward, Thalassa, beautiful in spite of her age, and she patted Thror on the shoulder and took over, offering them her own welcome as the woman of the house. She promised them food, and rest, and began to lead them inside, through quiet, warm corridors.

Just as Bilbo climbed the stairs, and levelled with the rest of the royal family, Prince Thorin turned, and glanced at him, before immediately looking away again.

Bilbo paused, for just a moment, waiting to see if Thorin would look back at them again.

He did not: Bilbo shrugged, and followed his kin inside.

They were lead through the palace with various instructions, promises uttered for anything that they might need, but he couldn’t shake the thought of that Prince’s eyes. There had been something about it that had made him wonder, once again, just what they were doing there, just what Thror wanted from them – Thorin had seemed so singularly sad, so full of an impossible grief that Bilbo had no name for - no, not just grief. It had been some indeterminate combination of grief and _guilt_ , as mixed and inseparable as wine and water in a drinking cup.

They were brought to the rooms that would house them last of all, and Bilbo was careful to make sure that he was left to last, that all his friends were in their own rooms before he let the Queen lead him to his own. The fatigue had finally settled into his bones, aching from so many weeks spent at sea, and he sighed as she opened the door for him. He’d seen the rooms that his friends had been given through the doorways, and his was equal to theirs, in every way.

They were beautiful, as large as any that he had at home, the walls hung with dyed silks and the floors made of marble, polished to such a shine that the light from the torches caught them, reflected and glowing. The stone was warm to the touch, and the bed was wide, fine cotton thrown across the thick mattress of it, looking far too tempting after so many weeks curled up on the ship, and the long hours of the night spent so far on the cart.

There was a distant rumble of thunder, from somewhere far across the sea, and the gauze of the fabric pulled across the open windows billowed for a moment.

He sighed, once more, and bade the Queen goodnight, shutting them door behind her, shutting it on the entirely strange place.

The King had been welcoming, friendly even, far warmer than Bard had been, but there had been an odd nuance to his voice that had set Bilbo a little on edge, something about him that had made him wonder at just how genuine he had been. There had been something brittle to Prince Thrain’s expression, too, something hollow in the way that Prince Frerin had smiled, and the Princess Dis had not even bothered, looking at the whole scene with some sort of distant sadness, as if she hadn’t wanted to be there at all.

There was fresh fruit on the table, clean water and a fine smelling wine in jugs close by to it, and the promise of food to come whenever he should want to call. There was a bed to sleep in, and through an open doorway he could see a bathtub, full of steaming water, that would no doubt ease every ache that he felt throughout his body. He took a step closer, catching the scent of the oils that had been mixed in. His skin would be soft, and supple after a bath like that, the salt finally gone from him. He could rub those oils through his hair until the coarseness of it had been dispelled entirely.

Oh, and it was tempting.

What else had their escort said? That if they should call, a slave would be sent to rub down their aching muscles, to ease every pain that they had developed, on board the ship. And fine clothes would be sent to them too, the best fabric that they had in the palace, clean and soft.

And then he could sleep, couldn’t he?

But though he longed to relax, to slip from this strange dream that his nightmare had somehow morphed into, he couldn’t quite help but feel on edge still, as if there was something about this that he had missed, something that he hadn’t considered.

Everything felt very… strange, he thought, and not at all what he had expected, and he stood in the middle of the large room for a moment, wondering at just how wrong it all seemed to be, at least to him. But as he exhaled, wondering what there was to do, he happened to glance at the other side of the room, only to glance suddenly back as he caught sight of something. There was a strange shadow along the line of light underneath the door, and he edged a little closer, his breath easing out and growing slower as he did. He paused, and cracked the door open a little, making sure to remain silent as he peeked outside.

It was as he thought.

Propped up against the doorframe, bronze sword glinting at his belt, was a guard, holding his post firm.

He was not a guest, and it would do him well to remember.

He was a prisoner.


	2. Chapter 2

Bilbo fell asleep slumped across the low couch wondering what do, and woke early in the morning with a crick in his neck and no more answers. He glanced underneath his door, only to find that the guard was still in place, and after a moment’s hesitation went to wash himself in the now-cold bathwater.

It was chill, but refreshing, and he scrubbed the salt out of his hair like he had intended to last night, feeling much better for it.

Someone had been in, during the night, and had left a fresh pile of clothes on the table by the door. He stared at the suspiciously for a moment before shaking his head – they were just clothes, after all. What harm could come from being clean, for the first time since leaving Athens?

The sun was only just rising above the sea, and he stood for a moment, wrapped in towelling cloth, leaning against the windowsill. The air outside was cool still, but there was a promise of heat to come, and as the first rays of the sunlight hit his face he smiled, despite himself.

So, it seemed that he could not get out the door to his rooms without someone noticing. Well, in that way it wasn’t entirely different to growing up in the palace. A young Prince will always find ways to escape his mother and tutors, regardless of what people might think.

He snuck a handful of grapes from the bowl as he dressed.

The window was wide and open, the gauze curtains fine and beautiful, and the sky outside was pale blue, with the promise of a scorching day to come. Already the stone of the outside wall was starting to warm up, and he smiled to himself as he leant as far outside the window as he could manage, looking around him. His window overlooked what seemed to be an external courtyard, colonnades open to the bleached grass and white rock of the cliff top, the sea a broad stretch of blue beyond. In the distance he could see a ship, sails raised high to catch the morning breeze, and for a moment he wondered if it might have been the ship that brought him here, before shaking his head. This was no time for melancholy thought – right now, he had to figure out how to get out of this room.

Back home, it was a conveniently placed olive tree. Here, it was going to have to be that fig tree, and would be a little more of a stretch than he was used to, but he should be able to do it, as long as he was careful.

He clambered out, his legs swinging over the edge, and jumped.

The air exploded out of his lungs as his arms wrapped around the tree trunk, his bare feet scraping against the bark. There was a cacophony, for a brief moment, of disturbed birds, and then only the quiet whisper of the leaves that he had knocked falling to the ground: he paused, and then climbed slowly downwards, until his feet (scraped now, but they had seen far worse in their time) found the stone of the courtyard.

He looked around himself, unsure of what he was actually planning on doing now that he was here. He had wanted to explore the palace, of course, and to find answers as to why they were here, but now that he had made it down to the ground he found that he wasn’t entirely sure where to begin. The whole place was oddly quiet for a palace first thing in the morning – where were the servants, bustling to and fro? Where was the movement, the pace, the life?

In the distance a bird let out a strange and lonely call, from somewhere above the sea.

He padded across to the shade of the colonnade, hoping for inspiration.

He hadn’t expected inspiration to come in the form of a dark-haired youth, a few years younger than Bilbo, barrelling straight into him.

“Ooof!”

“Kee!”

Bilbo blinked, right up into the face of one of the beaming Princes – the youngest of them, of course (because Bilbo could hardly imagine Prince Thrain running all over the place, knocking over guests, although the mental image was quite a picture) _._

 _Ah_ , he thought to himself. _Guests. There you go again, not being careful. No matter how welcome they might make you feel now, remember that you are a prisoner, and nothing more._

“Sorry!” the youth beamed down at him, before rolling off Bilbo’s front and standing up, brushing himself down. A second Prince, with lighter hair and a more serious face, had arrived now, and was shaking his head in bemusement.

“Oh, well,” Bilbo managed, sitting up a little. “That’s quite alright.”

They both glanced down at him in surprise, as if they had already quite forgotten that he was even there, before they both offered their hands to him in perfect unison.

“I’m Fili!” said the older, as Bilbo took his hand.

“And I’m Kili!” the second intoned, as he grabbed hold of Bilbo’s other wrist without waiting.

He was about to protest, but before he could found himself lifted almost clean off the ground by the force of their combined enthusiasm. He was left a little startled as they put him back on his feet, blinking at the sudden shift. They stared at him expectantly for a moment, before he remembered his manners.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, quickly. “My name’s Bilbo. I’m from-”

“Athens!” Kili said. “We know!”

Fili sighed.

“We remember your face from last night,” he explained, rolling his eyes and nudging his brother. “You were the one that replied to Grandfather’s welcome. Most of the… visitors, well, they don’t do that, they’re normally too afraid.”

Bilbo shifted a little, feeling uncomfortably like he had done something wrong. In another situation, he might have proffered an apology, but since he had been brought here against his will, he rather thought that he shouldn’t have to.

“What are you doing up?” Kili asked, suddenly. “It’s still early in the morning, Mother said that none of you would be awake until noon after such a long journey.”

Bilbo shrugged, unwilling to admit that fear was making it difficult for him to rest.

“Well, how come the two of you are so awake and active so early in the day?” he asked instead, hoping to turn the conversation away from himself.

“Oh,” Kili grinned, glancing to his brother. “Us and Da were asleep right up until the moment they caught sight of your cart, and went back to sleep right after. That’s why Mother had the three of us stand behind her in the shadows, you see – our hair was a mess, and she didn’t want any of you to notice.”

Bilbo stared at them for a moment, baffled, before he let out a sharp bark of laughter. Messy hair, indeed! And he had thought that the royal family of Crete would be a strange and formidable one! These young boys were just the same as any lad he had known back home, full of boisterous energy and youthful good humour. Hardly the threatening Princes that he had expected!

But before he could say anything more, another man had appeared in the colonnade, frowning at them.

“Fili! Kili! Your Grandfather says that you are making far too much noise outside his window, and he wants you to-”

Prince Thorin paused as he caught sight of Bilbo, half hidden behind the colonnade, and his face sunk into a frown.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, his tone a little sharp.

Bilbo simply shrugged.

“Exploring,” he replied, as innocently as he could, trying to ignore the way that Kili smothered a laugh.

Prince Thorin regarded him for a long moment, his expression masked behind a wall of indifference. He was nearly a head taller than Bilbo, and much closer to the intimidating spectacle that Bilbo had anticipated from the royal line – his hair was a dark mane down his back, braided at the temples and held in place with bright blue stones, and his jaw was hard, as if he were clenching his teeth. There was some primitive strength about him that Bilbo could not entirely explain, some great power, some ancient beauty. It would be difficult not to know that he had royal blood, Bilbo found himself thinking as they stared at each other.

After a long pause, Thorin sighed, his shoulders slumping a little, as if in defeat.

“I will lead you back to your room,” he told Bilbo, in a voice that brokered no room for argument.

Bilbo padded after Thorin, watching the broad line of his shoulders, and half-smiled to himself. There was still so much that he had to learn about Crete, about why they were here, but he doubted very much that he would get all that much from this stoic Prince, with his frowns and unhappy demeanour. Still, he drew level with Thorin, glancing up at him and then ahead of them, at the sun-dappled courtyard.

“So,” he began, letting the word trail off awkwardly, to see if Thorin might take the bait.

It seemed to a moment as if he wouldn’t, but with a barely stifled groan Thorin spoke, keeping his eyes firmly ahead of them, his voice  sounding singularly bored.

“What do you think of Crete?”

Bilbo tried to hide a smile, but couldn’t quite manage it.

“I’ll admit I haven’t seen much of it, arriving in the middle of the night.”

Thorin’s eyes closed for a brief moment, as if embarrassed at the stupidity of his question. His reply was hissed between tightly clenched teeth.

“Of course.”

Bilbo felt a little guilty then. It was a little cruel, to tease Thorin so, even if Bilbo was here as his prisoner. He patted Thorin’s arm, a tad awkwardly, and smiled up at the Prince.

“Sorry, I’m sure that it is a lovely place. Perhaps you could show me around the palace soon?”

 _If nothing else,_ he thought to himself, _he might learn a little more about the place, and any dark secrets that it could have been hiding._

Thorin glanced at him, and for a moment Bilbo could have sworn that he was blushing, his mouth hanging open a little in surprise. But good manners must have been bred into him, because after only the shortest of silences he seemed to remember himself, nodding quickly.

“I… of course.”

Bilbo hummed a little sound of agreement as they came to the end of the colonnade, and to a wide set of gentle white steps. He glanced back over his shoulder for a moment, oddly regretful.

“Your courtyard is beautiful though,” he told Thorin, glancing back at the Prince for a moment to offer him a small, more genuine smile than the slightly teasing ones he had shot in Thorin’s direction before now. “It reminds me of my mother’s, in Athens, though I think yours is bigger.”

Thorin seemed to swallow, his brow contracting a little, and there was a strange moment when he seemed almost sad to Bilbo, though the Athenian Prince could not really understand why.

“Indeed,” was Thorin’s stoic answer, his eyes turning back to the stairs. He took the first step, and with a sad little sigh Bilbo moved to follow him, drawing level with Thorin once more, though the flight of steps quickly narrowed, so that their arms brushed against each other.

“Though I would warrant that most things here are bigger than they are in Athens,” Bilbo admitted, running a hand through his hair. Already the day was feeling uncomfortably hot, and he wondered if he might be able to press a servant somewhere into drawing him another bath, a cool one without oils, that he might be able to rest in properly.

“I would not know,” Thorin replied, his voice a little weary.

“Have you ever desired to travel there, my Prince?” Bilbo answered, keeping his eyes on the narrow steps rather than the man to the other side of him, careful to ignore the fact that Thorin’s skin felt comfortingly warm against his own. After spending so long huddled with his kin in the boat, he was finding it quite strange this morning to be without them, to be without the gentle touches that had kept them all going through the long and dangerous days at sea. “It is a beautiful city, though you must forgive a certain amount of bias on my part.”

He glanced across, then, and there was a quirk of a smile at the corner of Thorin’s mouth, barely there.

“I should like to see it, perhaps, one day,” the Prince admitted, and Bilbo nodded, satisfied enough with that reply.

“Have you been to many places? The Cretans are known throughout the world.” It was a gentle way to phrase the fact that the Cretans had once tried to _conquer_ the known world, and Thorin glanced at him quickly, suspicion giving way to a strange sort of thanks at Bilbo’s tact.

“I have never left this island.”

Bilbo was surprised at this: even as Prince of Athens, he had left his city on several occasions, sometimes to go alongside his mother and other times to go in her stead to visit far off places and distant allies.

“You haven’t?” he asked, and his surprise must have shown in his tone, because Thorin was frowning again now, almost defensive.

“No.”

They emerged from the stairwell into a corridor, brightly lit from the morning sun, the great stone painted white and a soft, gentle red, blue lotuses painted along the line where the walls joined the ceiling.

“Well, I’m sure you must have heard about Athens from the other Athenians, before now, anyway,” Bilbo said, a little awkwardly, suddenly regretful that he had broken the brief moment of ease that they shared before, wanting it now back. “So I am probably only boring you with things that you have heard already.”

“I…” Thorin answered, trailing off, and Bilbo looked up at him, waiting for him to continue.

“What?” he asked, when Thorin made no move to say anything more. Thorin’s face was awkward, and he was definitely blushing now, his eyes following the blue lotuses above them, a certain shame sitting heavy across his shoulders. Bilbo frowned. “Have you never… spoken to the others, before now?”

Thorin said nothing, and that was answer enough. They drew level with a door, outside which a guard was standing: he stood to attention when he saw Thorin, and then glanced down at Bilbo only to have his expression morph into something that might have been quite amusing, in other circumstances.

“We are here,” Thorin said, and Bilbo nodded.

It would have been nice, he thought to himself, a little absentmindedly as he watched Thorin run an awkward hand through his hair, to walk a little more with Thorin, to learn a little more about what it means to be a Prince on Crete, compared to in Athens.

“Well, it was lovely to meet you, Prince Thorin,” he said instead of voicing that particular feeling, and dropped into a short bow. When he glanced up, he realised that Thorin was watching him, and then the taller man bowed too.

“And I you.”

They stared at each other for a moment, neither smiling nor frowning, but both of them busy with their own thoughts, a mess of conflicting feelings. Thorin offered Bilbo a short smile, something just a shade warmer than cursory, and nodded once more, at the door this time. The guard moved out of the way, and Bilbo took the hint, pushing open the door and stepping inside.

“Someone will rouse in at noon, and lead you to the banqueting hall,” Thorin called out after him, and Bilbo turned in the doorway, offering him something of a smile in return.

“I hope to see you there, Prince,” he replied, shutting the door before he had a chance to see or hear anything more from Thorin.

 

* * *

 

His rooms felt strange to him when Thorin stepped through the gilded doors, suddenly claustrophobic, the ceilings too low and the sunlight outside the window pressing in far too much. The day was already warm, the breeze blowing in from outside gentle, billowing the hangings on the walls closest to the window, soft against him as they brushed against his arms, a gust of wind moving his hair back from his forehead.

These had been Thorin’s rooms since before he could remember, the soft stone as familiar to him as the lines on his palm, but right now he felt as if he were in a place that he had never known; he ran his hand along the woven hangings, the ones that Dis had made on her loom before she had been married (helped by Frerin, although he tended to stay quiet about that), and tried to fight down a wave of dizziness.

His skin felt too tight, prickling and uncomfortable, and he waved his servants out quickly, keen to be alone.

The conversation with Bilbo had thrown him, had left him startled and unsure.

He had never spoken to any of the sacrifices like that before: now that he thought about it, he couldn’t even recall ever having a single conversation with any of them. He had always been careful to keep himself away, to keep a distance: he remembered his mother telling him that they could never be his friends, that if he grew to care for them in the few short days that they were here then he would only have to carry around the scars of his loss.

The servants had filled the sunken back in the side room, and suddenly tired despite the early hour of the day, Thorin stripped off his clothes and stepped straight into the water. He stood there, for a moment, the water around his calves, the air full of steam and the bitter-sweet scent of the oils mixed into it. The white stone, smoothed by centuries of use, looked almost gold in the sunlight from the other room, and he shuddered at the thought.

It felt calm, and peaceful, but it wasn’t enough to still the storm of confusion in Thorin’s chest.

He lowered himself into the water instead, and it was hot enough to sting, but he sank down beneath the surface anyway, closing his eyes as his face slipped beneath the water, slick against his skin with the oils mixed in there.

He felt the aches of the day ease, a little, and he stretched the length of himself out in the bath, rolling his shoulders in the water as he felt the ache of each slowly relaxing muscle.

It was warm enough, under the water, that sweat was beginning to bead on his brow, and his pulse beat a loud drum in his ears.

He remembered them coming when he was just a child: he had been six the first time Athenian sacrifices came to the island, and had hid behind his mother’s dress as he had watched them climb down from the cart that Bard’s father had lead up the hillside to the palace. They had been tall and strange to a child who had never left his homeland before, their clothes all in white and their skin unadorned with jewellery or markings. Their eyes had been scared, he remembered that.

But there had been so many years since then; so many sacrifices brought to their palace, entertained, and then seen into Gandalf’s great labyrinth beneath their halls, the doors barred behind them, the guards ignoring the desperate cries and the scratch of fingernails at the walls.

His hair felt soft in the water, brushing against his shoulders like silk; he focused for a moment on that feeling, trying to ignore the heat of the guilt that had taken a hold of his chest.

He hadn’t understood, not that first time, what these strangers were doing there: his mother and father hadn’t told him, or his brother and sister, until they were much older, and that had probably been for the best. He hadn’t understood it even as he was nearing maturity: he certainly wouldn’t have understood at six years old.

“You have to understand, Thorin.”

His mother’s voice, calm and measured, but quavering just a little with a strange sort of grief.

“If we didn’t, it would escape.”

When had he learnt was _it_ was? It felt as though he had always known.

“And if it escaped, it would destroy us all.”

Had that been enough to make his mother sleep easy in her bed? He knew that it wasn’t enough to appease Thror’s guilt, had seen Thrain wandering the corridors at night, had heard that horrific, crunching sound of teeth on bone echoing from the labyrinth even in his own dreams, morphing into the sound of weeping from mothers that he had never met.

Bilbo would have a mother, a family, back there in the city that Thorin had never seen. Perhaps they were standing at the windows of their house right now, no doubt a small and comfortable place, that felt like home even to strangers; his parents, or siblings, or even a lover might be watching out at the sea, wondering where Bilbo was, wondering what he might be doing.

What did the families, the cities, of their victims think would happen to their children when they arrived on Crete? For the first time in his life Thorin let himself think about the sacrifices that he had seen lead down the secret stairway at the back of the palace, the many youths that they had closed the great, bronze doors to, locking them deep underground. He blocked the thought of them out for so long, refusing to even speak to them, and just a brief conversation with Bilbo had torn down defences that he hadn’t even realised he had kept thrown up.

A pearl of air escaped from his mouth, tracing up the skin of his cheek under the water, almost as soft as a lover’s caress.

With a sigh Thorin lifted his head back above the water, scrubbing a hand through his hair.

He left the bath soon afterwards, frustrated and not even slightly relaxed, sitting for a while on the open terrace outside his room in the sun, the heat of it drying his bare skin better than any fabric ever could. He twisted the water from his hair, the long dark mane of it thick and heavy in his hands, and turned away the servants who came to ask him if he needed any help. He ran the oil through his hair by himself, until it fell like silk around his shoulders, braiding it back from his temples as he squinted into the sunlight, lines of silver threaded through his hair that hadn’t been there even a  couple of years ago. 

Thorin could only put off leaving his room for so long, though: soon enough the bell was rung to call them all to the arriving feast, and he shrugged on the white fabric of his tunic, the dark blue of his short cloak, woven with the patterns of his royal line.

He smiled half-heartedly as he took his seat next to his siblings at the royal table, his eyes automatically drawn to the line of Athenians across the room. Bilbo wasn’t there yet, but his eyes traced across each of the other men and women already sat there, committing each face to his mind. He never learnt their names before, he’d never even really bothered to look at them beyond a cursory glance when they had first arrived, but now he stared as if these were the last faces that he would ever see. There was a girl with hair that was blue-black, like a raven’s wing, and another with a thin, winding scar around her neck, old and silvered as if she had acquired it in her youth. There was a boy with laughing amber eyes, and another wearing finely made gold pins shaped like eagle wings to hold their cloak in place.

One girl glanced up, and caught his eye, and to his own shame he found himself looking away, unable to hold her gaze.

He felt… ashamed, full of an unspeakable grief that had welled up with the same swiftness as the rising tide.

The girl glanced away abruptly when the chair to her right was pulled out, and Bilbo sat down with something of a smile in the direction of his kin. Thorin was about to avert his eyes from their direction entirely, but before he could Bilbo caught sight of him, and waved a little awkwardly from across the room.

Thorin nodded in return.

Frerin was frowning at him, and Thorin stared down into his wine cup, heavily watered down at this time of day, hoping to avoid any questions. Unfortunately his brother was as persistent as he was curious, and he nudged Thorin, his voice a little louder than it should have been had he wanted Dis not to pay attention to their conversation.

“Brother! Don’t let Grandfather catch you flirting with one of the Athenians, you know he’ll just ban you from any of the celebrations this week.”

Thorin blanched. Celebration was not the right word to use for the various feasts and events that were in place to honour the arrival of the Athenians, and to commemorate the continued survival of their line and of the safety of Crete. Whilst it was, of course, a good thing that the… bronze doors underneath the palace remained closed, it seemed callous that their so-called celebrations came at the expense of the Athenians.

At the expense of their lives.

He swallowed as Bilbo shot him a small smile, something uncertain and unfamiliar fluttering in his chest.

In just a few days, Bilbo would be gone, and Thorin would never see him again.

Frerin was still looking between them.

“Do you know him, or something?” he asked, and Thorin shrugged.

“His name is Bilbo, I met him only briefly.”

It felt a little strange to dismiss him so quickly, even though it was not a lie: he and Bilbo had spent only a few moments together. He barely knew the man, but that brief moment had shaken him more than he was quite able to admit, his normal grief that came from knowing that their arrivals would soon be dead exacerbated by the fact that he had actually stopped to have a conversation with one of them this time.

“It is rare for you to spend time with any of our… guests, Thorin?” Frerin commented, his voice attempting for nonchalance, but failing miserably.

“He had left his rooms,” Thorin said, quickly. “And the boys were luring him into their games. I simply escorted him back to his room.”

Frerin nodded, but there was still a teasing smile curling around his mouth that died very quickly when Thorin spoke again.

“Do you ever wonder what punishment the Gods are saving for us, for all that we are having to do?”

Frerin was frowning now, his lower lip pulled between his teeth, the skin a harsh red as he bit a little too hard.

“Thorin, this is not like you, not at all.”

Thorin shrugged, and ran a hand through his hair, ruffling his braids. The silver clasps that held them in place against his scalp knocked against the cuffs in his ears, and the sound was unnaturally loud in his ears against the bustle of the feasting room, his heartbeat a drum that he couldn’t escape. He didn’t answer Frerin, unsure of what there was to say.

Frerin seemed to understand that, and he rested a hand against the crook of Thorin’s elbow, frowning even deeper.

“It is not us that slay the tributes, Thorin,” he said, his voice a lot lower now. “It is not us that the Gods will punish.”

Thorin shook his head.

“That isn’t enough, Frerin. We are still the ones that shut the doors behind them.”

The opportunity to reply was taken from his brother when King Thror entered the room: the conversation died at the sight of him, and the various guests rose to their feet in respect as he padded slowly down the length of the room. Still a tall and impressive man, only Thorin and perhaps his father really knew how tired the old man felt most days, how much effort he put into still standing so tall, still looking so strong. The great crown about his brow carried a weight far more than just the silver that it was made of, far heavier than any piece of jewellery had any right to be.

Thror raised his great, scarred hands, and smiled, even though his eyes were morose.

The feast began in earnest, and Thorin kept one eye on the Athenians as they helped themselves to the great platters of food that were laid in front of them. Both Dis and Frerin tried on several occasions to draw him into conversation, to try and bring him out of his low mood, but he proved unwilling, remaining silent and brooding on the wash of conflicted emotion that had left him reeling this afternoon. Thorin himself ate little, only picking at the fish dish in front of him despite how fond he was of it. Twice his father tried to ask him a question, but both times he only became aware of that after Frerin was forced to elbow him swiftly in the side. 

He didn’t notice eyes watching him, a careful and calculating gaze following his movements with barely disguised interest.

The afternoon wore on as course after course were piled before the guests. They celebrated the arrival of their guests each time in the same way, but right now Thorin could barely look at the lavish plates without being reminded of the way that the priests would feed up the sacrificial animals before a festival, hoping that a fatter kill would better appease the Gods.

The Athenians were laughing, their cups of wine being refilled as soon as they were emptied, and the noise was jarring to Thorin.

He rose as soon as he was able to without appearing rude, thoughts too heavy on his mind to let him sit any longer, and didn’t notice that another man in the hall stood almost immediately after him. They had been here far longer than he had realised: already the afternoon was dying, the day closing.

The sun was low on the horizon when he slipped from the feasting hall, a red and bloody ball that shimmered in the last of the day’s heat, and before he stepped into the red-gold light cast by the end of the day Thorin glanced behind him, back into the hall, only to see his Grandfather wiping a hand across his brow, a gesture that might have seemed trivial but that Thorin suspected was really to give him a moment of respite from the smile that he was forced to endure for these few days. When guests were not here, Thror was often a dour and sad old man, his shoulders slumped from years of regrets: it was strange, really, to see him smile, to hear him laugh.Thorin had grown much more used to the sound of poorly-concealed sobs coming from the entrance to his Grandfather’s chambers, long sighs echoing through moonless nights when _sounds_ from deep underground spilled out from behind those great bronze doors, making their way through narrow passageways, filling the corridors with the sound of teeth on bone, of screams in the dark, of laughter that was barely human. 

The corridor was a bloody colour.

He shuddered as he took first one step into it, and then another.            

Thorin became aware very soon of footsteps echoing behind him, but he didn’t bother to turn: soon enough the familiar and light tread of Gandalf drew level with him, and he offered a nod in the older man’s direction.

Gandalf had been a feature of his world for his entire life, though the older that Thorin had grown the less he really felt like he understood the strange man’s motivations. He had first come to the island before Thorin was even born, when Thror’s armies were stretched their furthest (though it was rare, these days, that anything was said about those days). All Thorin knew about why Gandalf had journeyed to Crete came from an overheard, muttered conversation between his parents, when he was just a boy: he had come to entreat Thror, to try and reason with him, though the King had been unwilling to listen at the time.

He had not given in, though, but had stayed, waiting outside the palace every day, even when the King refused to meet with anyone. And so he had still been here when Thror’s fire had produced… the darkness.

The thing that they didn’t talk about.

And then Thror had been willing to meet with Gandalf, and very soon afterwards the tall, grey-haired man had been put in charge of designing and leading the construction of the great labyrinth underneath the palace. Thorin was never certain if Thror had commanded Gandalf to build it, or if he had chosen to do it himself, for the good of all the world.

Had Thror and Gandalf known each other before then? Sometimes it seemed as if they might have done, if the conversations they mumbled to each other when they were deep in their cups of wine were any indication.

And why Gandalf had remained was another mystery.

Gandalf and Thror argued on a regular basis, bickering about anything from the right time to bring in the harvest to whether the fish was over done at dinner. Sometimes it was tame enough, but there were other times when they both ended up in a blazing rage, storming from whatever room they were in muttering curses underneath their breaths in each other’s direction. But Thror had never dismissed him, and Gandalf had never made any indication that he wanted to leave, to whatever far off place that he had first come from. That in itself was another mystery,

He was startlingly intelligent, and his council was always valuable, despite those long summer afternoons he spent smoking the strange herbs that the Phoenician traders brought to Crete, and watching the birds flying overhead, muttering about wings, and air currents.

So for that reason Thorin just nodded when Gandalf asked if he might walk with him for a while, and the pair slowly left the noise of the dining room behind them, following the gabled hallways and columned archways, the marble before them streaked in red and black, from the last of the sunlight and the shadows of the columns.

“I have never seen you paying particular attention to our visitors whenever a reaping occurs,” Gandalf commented, his voice idle but his eyes bright.

Thorin just shrugged, not willing to say anymore of the subject than he had already, to Frerin.

He paused for a moment as the sun touched the horizon, and with a short sigh Gandalf took two steps down from the colonnade, stepping lightly over the white stone flags to the low wall, bathed gold in the light. He leaned against the top, and after a moment Thorin joined him, tracing the fine lines of blue in the stone, remnants of some crystal that had been in the rock when they had quarried it to carve.

The sea looked like copper in the light, but for where the waves were cresting, where the shadows were long pools of black against the bright reflected sunlight.

There were larkspur flowers growing against the other side of the wall, the petals beginning to curl inwards in the evening breeze.

What had made Gandalf agree to make the labyrinth in the first place? Why hadn’t he just damned Thror, and left him to deal with the curse that the King had brought down, left the whole of the island to cope with the great beast, and his stone heart? It would have been far easier for Gandalf just to leave. It wouldn’t have been the first time that he had left an island without permission of the King, if the stories were anything to go with, although Thorin wasn’t sure how much he believed in the strange stories that some of the fishermen whispered to each other, about Gandalf and men in blue and wings made of feathers and wax.

The sun was sinking beneath the line of the sea now, the shadows growing longer. Far above them the first of the stars winked into life, bright against the pale navy of the sky.

But Gandalf wasn’t the only one with questionable motives, not really. What had made his Grandfather do what he had done in the first place, too? Why had he grown to care so much about power and gold, about taking control of all the cities of the world, of having so many crowns piled before his own throne, flanked with painted griffins that glared out from the walls with a stare as singularly intimidating as Thror’s own had been, by all accounts, though Thorin himself could only remember a stooped old man, bent low with regret.

There were many conquerors in the history of the world. Thorin had read about a lot of them, and heard stories too. His Grandfather wasn’t alone in wanting power, in wanting so much more than other men, and though Thorin found himself struggling to really understand why, he could at least conclude that his Grandfather wasn’t too dissimilar from many other rulers, in that regard. And perhaps one day, when it was Thorin’s turn to sit on that throne, he might find his own head turned by the thought of something greater than he, by the thought of crafting a legacy for himself and for his kin so strong, so long, that the Gods themselves would not be able to take it away.

But still, why had Thror taken that next step?

What had driven him to create a creature like that beast, what had swayed his hand?

“Sometimes I hate this island,” he said, to the growing dark, more to himself than to Gandalf, though the old man turned to look at him nonetheless, with a look of strange curiosity, as if he were not sure quite what to think about Thorin.

“I hate what it has done to us,” Thorin continued, watching the shimmer of the sea in the distance, the wheeling of a low seabird, using the last of the light. “What that… thing in the dark has done to us. And yet I love it still, for all of that.”

Gandalf didn’t say much, but he nodded, even though Thorin wasn’t looking at him.

“I wonder sometimes what this place was like before all of this happened, before we lived above a monster, before my Grandfather forgot how to laugh for anything other than a façade. I feel somehow as if that beast has taken that away from me, the heart of a home.”

He looked away, down at the larkspur growing wild in the shadows, and bit the inside of his cheek so hard that the immediate taste of copper-bright blood flooded his mouth, annoyed at himself. He had let just a brief moment of introspective sorrow loosen his tongue, and he glared into the dark.

“Well,” Gandalf said, quietly. “There are always ways to take back a home, if you are certain enough that that it what you desire.”

Thorin didn’t immediately register what Gandalf had said, too wrapped up in his own mind to really pay attention to his companion, and by the time that he did the old man had risen from the wall, and his mouth was curved into a strange, funny little smile, as if he were laughing at a joke that only he would understand the punchline of. For a moment Thorin thought that he might ask Gandalf what he meant by that, might demand some explanation for the oddly ambiguous words, but in the end he did not, already certain that he had said enough this evening.

With a slight nod Gandalf left, and Thorin scowled out at the sunset, spreading now even further.

He stood there some time, as the night slowly drew in and the sun finally sank below the horizon, until the sky was just a wash of faint oranges and reds against the blacks and blues of the night. The Gods have drawn their chariot across the sky, for sure, and one by one he watched the rest of the stars appear.

Eventually the moon, gorged and silver, appeared too.

He must have stood there for a long time, over an hour perhaps, until he could no longer see much of the larkspurs but for the faint white-blue where the moonlight touched its petals, here and there, like sunspots on the water of a river. He was given his peace for a little longer than he usually was, but soon enough his sister came to find him, leaning close, the line of her arm pressing against his side.

“They are a lively bunch, this year,” Dis said, with something of a smile, but Thorin didn’t reply.

“We missed you this evening,” she told him, when he didn’t answer her, her voice almost a whisper, as if she was afraid of breaking the quiet of the night. The gold of the sunset had passed, the sea lit with the silver of the moon now, and the breeze felt a little cooler than it had before. Thorin closed his eyes against it for a moment, before putting an arm around Dis, squeezing her shoulders gently.

He didn’t explain where he had been, or why he had gone, and thankfully she didn’t press him for an explanation.

She just rested her hair against his shoulder, and sighed.

“I wonder,” she said, her voice still low, almost indecipherable for a moment against a sudden gust of wind. “I wonder if we’ll hear them screaming, this time.”

He didn’t know why she wondered: they always did.


	3. Chapter 3

After a while Dis grew tired of Thorin’s sullen silence, and she kissed him on the cheek before making her way back to her own rooms, and to her husband, who was no doubt waiting up for her to return. It was unlikely that her sons would retire to their rooms whilst there was still wine being poured, but Vili had never had much of a head for drink, and would no doubt have been reeling hours ago.

Thorin let her go with a kiss to her forehead in return, and an apologetic squeeze to her upper arm.

He turned an ear in the direction of the main banqueting halls after she had gone, only to found that much of the noise had died away, and with a low sigh he turned away from the wall, from the distant sound of the sea, to the promise of his bed and the distant possibility of a peaceful night.

The palace of Thror was a great and rambling place, long colonnades giving way to hallways with arched roofs. There were courtyards both big and small, some open but for delicately arranged flowers and plants, and others small and quite overhung with great trees. He had grown up here, all his life, and though he was sure that Fili and Kili wouldn’t believe it, he had once explored every small nook and every shadowy corner in this place. He had climbed every tree, and broken a fair few of the limbs off those trees too, in his youth.

The corner of his mouth quirked upwards as he saw one such tree, a great, ancient fig that still had the scar from where the bark had been ripped off when one such branch had fallen, under Frerin’s foot that time. He had been too old to be climbing trees really, but he’d been upset, and had thrown himself up the tree, using the scrape of the bark to disguise his tears. Thorin couldn’t even remember what had happened, to leave him that way.

It was only because he paused, to look at that scar, that he realised there was someone sat in the courtyard. It was one of the smaller ones, just the tree and a bench and trailing flowers up the columns, honeysuckle clinging to the stone. There were more larkspurs here too, seeded from the wild ones outside: they had never planted them, they just never bothered to pull them up, either.

His parents had always liked the bright blue of the petals, the soft lines of them. He could smell the sweetness of them from here.

The air was still, the scent all the brighter in the darkness for it.

Someone turned in the shadows: there were no lit torches in this part of the palace, most of the rooms reserved for use during the day. There was only the distant glow of some, right at the end of the hallway, and he would have missed Bilbo had he not moved at that exact moment, his face catching the moonlight.

Thorin wasn’t sure whether to leave or to stay: he had spoken to Bilbo for only a moment that morning, really, hardly enough to warrant him stopping again for another conversation, yet his feet dragged against the ground when he thought to leave, unwilling. He might have moved on, eventually, but Bilbo must have heard something, because he turned to look, his mouth opening, just a little, until they curved up into a smile.

“Hullo,” he called out, raising a hand. “You disappeared fairly on, didn’t you?”

Thorin ducked his head, but didn’t move from the colonnade.

“I had things to do, elsewhere,” he lied, but it seemed to be enough to console Bilbo, who glanced down at his lap. Thorin took a step closer, despite himself, just enough to see that he was running his fingers along a larkspur bloom, plucked from one of the plants growing along the white stone bench. His fingers looked slender in the pale moonlight, just a slant of it making its way over the rooftops.

“I didn’t know that you’d have all the same flowers here that we have, back at home,” Bilbo said, quietly. There was some brief echo of grief in his voice, but he managed to disguise it so swiftly that Thorin almost missed it. “Have you heard the story of larkspur?”

“Aye,” Thorin said. “The God Apollo, and the West wind, and-”

“No,” Bilbo cut across, looking back up at him quite suddenly. In the strange silver shadowed light the colour seemed to have been washed from his hair, from his skin, his eyes, and he seemed to Thorin in that moment almost to be a ghost. Perhaps that was why he took a step forwards, in the end: perhaps that was why, when Bilbo smiled at him again, Thorin took a seat next to him on the cool stone, the larkspurs brushing against his legs, the smell of the flowers fresh in the night.

Soon Bilbo would die, and Thorin would be left with the guilt of having watched another group of young men and women go into the labyrinth in which lived his Grandfather’s greatest mistake.

Tonight was just a moment of stillness before the storm of Bilbo’s visit broke, and so it didn’t matter if Thorin joined him right now: all this would be over tomorrow evening.

“Which story, then?” he asked, and Bilbo smiled again. It was an easy smile: he had clearly never had reason not to give it away before.

“The hero Ajax, of course,” he said, a hint of a laugh in his voice. “He chose to die and fell on his sword, and from the blood that fell on the ground larkspurs bloomed.”

“I hadn’t heard that one,” Thorin admitted, and Bilbo broke into a sudden yawn, leaning back against Thorin’s shoulder. He stiffened at the unexpected familiarity, but Bilbo did not seem to notice, and certainly didn’t move away.

“I like that one,” Bilbo said, quietly. “It makes me feel better, that death can lead to beautiful things.”

They sat there in silence for a time, and after a little while Thorin leant back a little, propping himself up against the tree, still stiff and uncomfortable. Bilbo seemed to realise that, eventually, and started talking, quietly at first and then a little more confidently, though there was a shake of fear in his voice that he didn’t seem able to get rid of, no matter how long he spoke. Eventually Thorin joined in, unenthusiastic at first, though quickly he grew more animated.

 

The night was dark; it might have just been the two of them left alone in all the world.

They talked about Athens and the sea, the trees and the books that they had read, the Gods that they believed in, the great temples that Bilbo poured libations in, the grain crowns he makes to rest on the brows of wooden statues. He grew sadder the longer that they spoke of his home, and Thorin found himself changing the subject, as slowly and as gently as he could, though he had never been the best at that sort of thing.

“Athens sounds beautiful,” Thorin said, eventually, and honestly too.

“You should come, some time,” Bilbo replied, without thinking. “I’ll show you around.”

Things were awkward then, for a long moment, as they both remembered once again that this was something that they would never have the opportunity to see happen. Thorin might go to Athens, one day, but Bilbo would not be there to meet him. Thorin couldn't help but feel guilty, for bringing it up, for reminding Bilbo, but the Athenian didn't seem to hold it against him, didn't shift from his spot at Thorin’s side in the darkness, the larkspur still twisting in his fingers.

There was a strange intimacy between them right now, in the stillness of this night, two ghosts hiding in the shade of a tree, falling silent every time they heard distant footsteps, as if they were both unwilling to have someone interrupt this strange moment alone. A strange warmth was blooming in Thorin’s chest that he didn't have a name for, and it would have almost been uncomfortable if Bilbo's presence hadn't been quite so comforting. There was still so much that Thorin knew that he couldn’t say, so much that he had never said to anyone, but Bilbo seemed happy to talk, more than content to fill the silence between them.

“I’m a Prince, like you,” Bilbo told him after a while, and Thorin laughed, before a thought struck him.

“What is a Prince doing here?” he asked, and Bilbo shrugged, telling him that his mother had put his name into the draw when he came of age because she was ashamed not to offer her own son when she asked her citizens to offer their own children.

“But I’m proud,” Bilbo said, and Thorin found himself swallowing, fighting down some shame that he could not explain. “I’m proud to uphold her promise to our people. I really am.”

He looked at his hands for a moment, before he glanced around and up at Thorin, the planes of his face cast into sharp relief in the moonlight and dark shadows of the night.

There was a faint and shadowed dappling of the leaves overhead against Bilbo's throat, and Thorin’s eyes were drawn to that pattern for a moment, to the movement of the skin as Bilbo swallowed, the closeness between them suddenly warm, suddenly _more_ than it should have been.

“Even if,” Bilbo said, his voice hoarse, almost a whisper. “Even if I don’t know what it is I am doing here.”

It was the closest that they had got to discussing it, the closest that Bilbo had come to asking, and there was nothing that Thorin could say. He found himself wanting to reach his arm around Bilbo and hold him a little closer, offer some kind of comfort, but all he managed to do was tense a little more, enough now that Bilbo finally noticed, and stilled against him.

“Perhaps we should retire,” he said, and Thorin bit back a protest, not wanting to leave this strange and secret moment that they had shared.

Bilbo stood, stretching, the dappling from the leaves and the moonlight reaching down his arms, down the fabric of his tunic, the white of it bright against the blue-black of the shadows of the colonnade. He still had the sprig of larkspur in his hand, and after a moment tucked it behind his ear, the flowers resting against the curls of his hair, washed out in the strange half-light.

Thorin wanted to say something, wanted to say anything, but he didn’t know what there even _was_ that he could say in comfort without simply lying.

 _Ghosts,_ Thorin thought to himself, as Bilbo reached a hand in his direction, as if to guide him to his feet. _In our own way, we’re both just ghosts. Him, waiting for his death, and me, waiting for real life to begin._

Thorin walked Bilbo back to his room again, both of them dragging their feet, as if neither of them really wanted this quiet moment of peace to end. He dismissed the guard outside Bilbo’s room this time, though he knew that the man would not go far, and would return to his post as soon as Thorin had gone. It gave them a moment of privacy, none the less, and he would have offered Bilbo something that might have been a smile, had he not felt quite so heavy with his sorrow.

“Is there anything you need?” Thorin asked, only to find himself blushing when Bilbo’s eyes widened in surprise, before he cracked up laughing. _Not like that,_ Thorin wanted to protest, knowing that Bilbo had caught the unintentional insinuation, but Bilbo just patted him on the arm, still smiling.

“I’m fine,” he told Thorin. “But thank you for listening to me talk.”

Thorin nodded, and ducked his head.

There was a moment, then, that might have been _something,_ but almost as soon as it had arrived it passed again, and they parted ways after a brief farewell.

 

* * *

The moonlight lights the tiles of the palace roof, and beneath it the occupants begin to settle down, retiring for the night, which is still and quiet outside the windows but for the slow roar of the sea, and the distant call of some lone bird, crying to the stars. Thorin drifts into an uneasy sleep beneath the covers that he has always known, but Bilbo finds that Hypnos finds him quickly here despite how unfamiliar it is, exhausted by his tension and by his fear but strangely relaxed after his evening of just _talking_ to the Prince.

The servants pad the quiet hallways, painted with reaching griffins and tall plants, reaching for the sky; on some walls are great golden snakes, and boys who dance around them, ready to strike.

The Athenians watch the moonlight outside their windows and wonder whether their families are awake, and thinking of them.

Alone in her room, now she no longer has to look after her friends, Primula rests her head in her hands and finally lets herself cry. She had always wanted children, and now she would never have the chance: she shuts her eyes against the mental image of a child with Drogo’s dark hair, and her mother’s blue eyes, and wondered instead what might be coming.

The stars grow brighter in the sky, spiralling constellations staring without feeling down on the dark tableau of the night.

The King of Crete strides back and forwards in his rooms, his hands running in despair through his hair, his eyes dark with the shadows of too many nights of too little sleep: his crown is thrown to one side, dull outside of the firelight. The polished silver is starting to tarnish around the great stone set into it, the colour of the sea in the middle of a storm.

It has been many years since he had slept through the whole night.

He wonders if it has woken yet.

Beneath those hallways are the servants quarters, busier than the royal rooms, but even they begin to quiet soon enough as the tasks for the day wind up, and they too find their rest.

That is where most households would end, but in the palace of King Thror there is another staircase: it is seldom used, and dusty, for not even the bravest of servants dare to sweep the steps, no matter what threats or rewards are offered: it leads to another set of corridors, the walls here painted oxblood red, with strange patterns carved into the stone that no mind today would be able to decipher: they spoke of regret, of rage, of blood and pollution, and the guilt of decades.

And all the way along those corridors, dim and barely lit, is a door.

It is tall, and thick, and bolted.

It opens rarely, and when it does, it is only for a few moments and for fourteen people at a time.

Beyond that door there is only darkness, the shadows not quite thick enough to hide the great clawed scratches in the stone walls, or the marks of desperate fingernails searching for any way out: the path forks, and then breaks into three, and then four, and then five. There is no guide, no lines chalked on the stone to show you where to go along the great, circling corridors: it is a maze, a labyrinth, all paths leading slowly inwards, in some great and lazy route, going further into the thick darkness lying within. But once you get far enough, once you push past the panic, the growing fear as the corridors grow narrower, you’ll begin to see some strange and dim light, as if from somewhere deep in those winding pathways is the flicker of candlelight, of firelight, of gold.

It is easy to get lost in those tunnels, easier still to remain lost.

And there, deep in the labyrinth, there is a movement in the half-dark, the slow exhale of a scaled belly, the shifting form of something beyond the understanding of most mortal men.

A great and slumbering beast begins to rouse.

It has slept for months, now, down in here in the dark, but it is time for it to rise, time for it to wake, time for it to _eat._

And it has slumbered on a bed of gold, thrown down into the labyrinth in the early years before they understood what it wanted: it nests on the loot of a hundred Kingdoms, taken before it was even created, and rests its head on the coronets of just as many Kings and Queens.

But there are no candles, no fires, to shed that strange light: it comes from the beast itself, from the glow of its scales, from the heat that radiates within it, and it catches that shining metal. The centre of the labyrinth shines with an almost ethereal quality, but this creature was not made by the hands of Gods.

Merely men: so much weaker than the Gods, but just as dangerous, when given the chance.

Dark gold scales begin shift across the stone floor: they make a strange sound, a slithering, like a snake through the grass.

A clinking then, as a clawed foot rakes through coins, piled high around its body: its skin begins to steam as the heat of his body intensifies.

It is waking.

A hand clenches, and then relaxes: it has the fingers of a man, but far longer than they should be.

There is a roar, half-made in sleep, as it becomes aware of its clawing hunger.

Soon, it thinks, soon.

An eye opens: it is red-gold, and burning.

It laughs.

And far above it, in the quarters of the King, Thror shudders in horror at the sounds that echo in his own mind.

 

* * *

The next morning dawned clear and bright, but few around the great tables in the banquet hall looked equally so. Many were suffering after imbibing heavily the night before: those who had been more lenient had been kept awake by other, darker thoughts. Thorin was well used to restless nights, and was becoming more and more aware that his inevitable ascent to the throne would only lead to more: in turn his siblings had become used to the increasingly sullen moods that you would find him in the early morning, and knew now not to try and push him too far when he was tired.

Of course, the prerogative of younger siblings is to know what is best for them to do, and to promptly ignore it anyway.

“He’s not going to disappear if you look down at your breakfast, you know,” Frerin commented idly, ducking out of the way as Thorin threw a chunk of bread at him, shrugging his shoulders a little when Dis glanced over at them both in curiosity.

It was true that Thorin had spent rather a while watching the way that Bilbo’s hair caught the light as his head turned to speak to different people, the way that the sunlight pouring in from outside seemed to bleach the dark shadows of exhaustion from underneath his eyes, the way that his smile seemed forced, the corners of his mouth barely curling upwards even when he seemed to be trying so hard.

It had been such a strange conversation, the night before, so full of an unexpected longing that Thorin could not have imagined, a quiet intimacy in the dark, the scent of night blooming flowers and the warmth of an arm pressed against him, skin against skin, leaving his chest so tight with feelings that he had no name for that it had almost hurt.

“I’m just saying,” Frerin continued as he brushed crumbs from his shoulders, “He’s going to disappear soon enough anyway, so if you really want to spend some time with him, _though you know_ _how Grandfather would feel about that,_ better now than never.”

Frerin’s humour seemed brittle, none of them (including Frerin himself) finding the joke that amusing, but just as Thorin had learnt to deal with the lack of sleep from a heavy conscience, so too Frerin had taught himself to mask his discomfort and guilt with humour, something which the both of them were beginning to notice that Fili had already started to emulate. And it was difficult not to poke fun at Thorin really, not when he was sitting there staring mournfully across the room at a walking sacrifice, when he had never even bothered to ask one of their names before this year. Frerin couldn’t help but worry, really, at the thought of what this might do to his brother: he swallowed that concern down, and patted Thorin on the shoulder instead.

“You are acting differently though,” he said, his voice a little quieter and more sincere now. “If you really don’t want the rest of the family to notice, I’d try to be a little more subtle.”

Thorin managed a grunt in response, not knowing what else to say – how could he tell Frerin that he had already seized the opportunity to speak to Bilbo, only to find himself more confused and conflicted than he had before?  

How could he tell his brother that, for the first time, he was actually considering pleading for one of the victim’s lives to be spared?

Thorin glanced up and out of the great room, through the tall and sweeping columns to the sunlight above them, not quite at its peak in the sky, blazing overhead with a fire and fury that could not be matched, not even by the great beast below them. The sky was that strange blue, full of a odd and airless quality that made it look almost hazy, far deeper than it normally would, and the rocks and stone in the courtyard seemed bleached even whiter underneath it. In the distance the sand on the shore would be brilliant in this morning light, the pink-tinged beaches of Crete a something for which they had become quite well know, as if the sea goddesses themselves had sent foams of coral to kiss the sand.

The Athenians were talking, he could hear them now, the servants assigned to watching them suggesting that they go down to the shore, to the palace’s private beach, to swim later in the afternoon, after the heat and haze of midday.

It would make for a good outing, Thorin knew, one that he and his siblings had done themselves on far too many days to count, when they were younger.

The day was beautiful, but that sat uncomfortably in Thorin’s chest.

 

* * *

 

All in all, Bilbo was not actually too bothered about going down to swim, but he struggled to explain that to the rest of the Athenians, who seemed determined that they all stay together as a group – and who could blame them for wanting to do that, strangers in a foreign place, far from home. He could not tell them that he would rather be by himself, trying to work out what to do, what there was _to_ do, how he might find some way to get them out of this miserable situation?

Because it seemed, for the most part, as if they were unwilling to talk about that after the assault of the luxurious rooms, the beautiful food, the care that was being shown to them. All of that had made many of the Athenians throw up a barrier of denial towards the truth of their circumstances: it was not that they had forgotten the stories, the horror, the fear, but that they were unwilling to face it now that there were other things to distract them.

And as the hours passed and Bilbo became more and more aware that he still had not come up with a plan, he was becoming less and less willing to shatter that illusion, to ruin the last few hours that they might have.

“It’s strange,” Primula said, walking beside him out of the dining hall as Bilbo fell into silence, dwelling on these thoughts. “Everyone is very friendly here.”

Bilbo nodded, shaking off his melancholic thoughts and focusing on his friend, his kinswoman. She looked more tired than the rest, he realised suddenly, more introspective, her eyes a little red as if she had been crying.

“But,” Primula continued, glancing out of the corner of her eye at him and then nodding in the direction of the servant who was leading them back to their rooms. “Have you noticed that despite how nice they are, none of them are willing to look us in the eyes?”

Bilbo tried to school his face into something reassuring, but Primula shook her head at him, and he sighed.

“Keep your voice down, at least,” he replied, his own voice pitched low. “It would not do to let the others hear you.”

“Nor any of the Cretans too, I wouldn’t have thought,” she answered, and then she looked at him again, more curiously this time. “Did you notice that the Prince was staring at you, over breakfast? You haven’t done anything to offend him, have you?”

Bilbo could feel the tips of his ears turning red, but he glanced up into the sky, using the sunlight as an excuse for closing his eyes.

“Which Prince?” he asked, though he knew full well which Prince, had felt Thorin’s eyes on him all morning, following his movements with some strange sort of wistfulness.

Thorin was… not what he had expected, although he wasn’t sure what he had been expecting to begin with. He was neither as fierce nor as dour as he had first appeared to be, that stern exterior masking a strange sort of sadness, a longing, a fear. Speaking to the Prince the way that Bilbo first had might have been something of a mistake, recklessness and nervousness loosening his tongue to tease, but Thorin had not seemed offended in the slightest, merely a little taken aback. And then last night, in the courtyard…

Bilbo swallowed, and looked away. 

There had been a part of him that had thought to run his fingers through the slow fall of that dark hair, to trace the fine web of lines around Thorin’s eyes with his fingertips, to kiss that mouth and see if the sorrow tasted as sweet in Thorin’s mouth as it felt in Bilbo’s, knowing that he had suddenly uncovered something that could have turned into so much _more,_ had Bilbo not had but a few days left to live. It had been difficult to stop himself, watching the way that the moonlight had gentled the strong planes of Thorin’s face, the far off stars their only witness. It would have been so easy to lean forward.

But perhaps that was just the suddenly wash of his own mortality talking; he barely knew Thorin, and for all that Bilbo wished to know him better, he also understood that it would be easy to throw himself into something with only a few days left, something that might never last, would burn bright and fast and die a sudden death.

But still, in that quiet courtyard, in the near dark, for just a moment, he had almost felt as if he were at peace.

He swallowed, and caught Primula’s eye: she looked unconvinced, and entirely unapologetic about it.

“Oh look,” Bilbo said, quickly. “There’s Bard. I might go and try and catch a word with him, see if I can find anything out. I’ll find the rest of you later.”

“Sure,” said Primula, her voice dripping with an acerbic amusement. “I’ll make sure to tell the Prince where you’ve gone should I see him, as well.”

Bilbo’s throat was definitely flushing in embarrassment now, but he tried to push it off, padding off quietly down the corridor that he had seen Bard go down. Primula was far more perceptive than he had ever realised: from now on he would have to be careful not to let anything slip around her, particularly when it came to late-night meetings in abandoned parts of the palace with a certain Prince.

He paused, before rounding a corner, trying to hear what might be lurking out of sight, and was forced to press a fist to his chest to quell a sudden lurch of fear, and pain.

There wouldn’t be much time for that sort of thing anyway, would there?

And even if Primula did find out, who was she going to tell? Bilbo’s mother?

No, neither of them would be seeing home again any time soon – why did it matter to him so much, then, if it was kept a secret or not?

When he heard no sound, he rounded the corner, only to realise that it lead to nothing but a door, propped open just a little. He had seen Bard turn here, and sure enough, when he crept closer, he heard the estate manager’s grim voice, pitched low so that Bilbo had to strain a little to hear what was being said.

“Everything is in order?” Was that Thrain’s voice?

“Aye,” and that was definitely Bard.

“So it will be tonight,” the first voice continued, and Bilbo pressed himself as close to the door as he dared. “We shall lead them down after the last feast, tonight, once the night is fully upon us.”

There was a strange sound, something that might have been a hoarse cough, or a cry of pain quickly choked back. Bard said nothing, and neither did the first man, the pair simply remaining in silent company together, perhaps for some strange sense of shared comfort.

Bilbo crept away, having heard enough.

So tonight would be the night – after the feast they would be lead away to whatever fate the Gods had in store for them. He almost wished that he hadn’t known – he had neither the time nor the resources to finalise some escape for all of them in just an afternoon, and he knew that he would not be able to relax at all for the rest of it, his mind too lit with fear to think straight.

What strange fate would they find, in the coming night?

He found the other Athenians quickly, the servants not having even noticed that he had gone, and though Primula stared at him questioningly he couldn’t bring himself to talk, even to her. Instead he just trailed after them, through the courtyard in which he had first met Fili and Kili, through the colonnade to a narrow, stony path, the rocks already hot underfoot, that lead a twisting route down the side of the cliff. Twice he almost fell, not paying enough attention to his balance, his mind elsewhere, running desperate laps around the same corridors of thought that he had walked so many times since his name had first been drawn from that ballot.

 _They could steal a ship_ – but how would they get down to the port town?

 _Well, they could steal a cart_ – but someone would notice them missing too soon.

 _But say they didn’t, they could still find a ship_ – but none of them knew how to sail.

 _Ah, how hard can it be to learn_ – but you have no water, no supplies.

 _The rain will come, the sea is teaming with fish_ – and how will you navigate home?

 _He knew the stars –_ not to journey by, my lad.

 _But they would be away_ – but what would you do when the Cretan navy followed you?

 _We would fight_ – but none of you know how.

 _Desperation would guide our hands_ – without any weapons?

And so on.

There was no answer, he understood this, and yet he could not bring himself to stop his desperate search for one, for all that it was in vain. The endless world of possibility lay open before him, but each door that he turned towards seemed too quick to slam in his face, the reality of it impossible for him to ignore.

They were trapped here.

They made it to the shore, a white-gold stretch of sand that in other days would have delighted him with the strange pink tint to it by the low-tide line, but now he barely saw it, barely registered the beauty and strangeness of it, nor the foam-tipped roll of distant waves, the call of birds above him. There was a wind tugging at his clothes, ruffling his hair – growing slightly too long now, he had been due to have it cut before he had left but he had always been putting it off – and the day was beautiful.

His kin were laughing, pulling off their layers, dashing to the water: there were strange shells in the sand, in colours he had never seen, and even from here he could see the silver-flicker of shoals of tiny fish in the shallows, waiting to be chased and played with. They were laughing, happy, and there were birds on the sand, half-tame, hopping over to those who held out their hands to coax them closer.

They were birds themselves, he realised: they had been caught in a net and carried away, well-tended and cared for now. He was just as much one of those birds as the rest of his kin were, brought for the amusement of some distant King, to twitter in his rooms until he deemed them fat enough to be stuffed for dinner.

It was a cage, this place.

A gilded one, fine and beautiful, but a cage none the less.

He looked down, to where his sandals were sinking slowly into the sand, the warmth of it surprising against his skin.

And Thorin, what of Thorin? Was he a part of this, or was he as trapped as Bilbo was, tied down by the weight of a guilt that wasn’t even his, kept in a palace, unable to leave, or to explore, too afraid of the anger that might face him for his Grandfather’s foolishness?

What right had Thror, to bring this fate upon him?

What right had Thror, to leave that legacy to Thorin?

He kicked his feet out of his sandals, suddenly angry, a white-and-red rage that he could not suppress. The sand was hotter than he had expected, burning against the soles of his feet, but he could not bring himself to care. Suddenly he was running down the sand, stripping his tunic and cloak off as he went, discarding them without concern or regard – presents from the King, at any rate! Not the coarser fabrics he was used to, heavy with the scents his mother preferred, unappreciated for so many years but suddenly longed for. There was the sudden pain of homesickness, like a hammer to the chest, making it tighten, restrict, but he kept on running, desperate for the kiss of water, past his friends who were calling to him, laughing at him, and the sudden sting of tears in his eyes right as his burning feet found damp sand, and then he was in the water, such a bright blue, a different shade to the sea he was used to, but oh, the touch of seawater, so familiar still.

_Mother, mother, where are you?_

But she was too far away, in his distant home, and she would not be able to hear him unless the birds took up his unspoken cry, calling it from one to another until it finally reached the shore of Athens, where she might have heard it as she sat by her window and wept for her son, for her people, for all of their children.

Bilbo waded out, deeper and deeper, until he could throw himself into the water and swim, until it was as deep as his chest, and then deeper still. The servants were calling too him now, as he approached the end of the small cove, but he did not progress out into the deeper, wilder waters. He just stared out, towards the horizon, where no one could see the way that his face crumpled, his expression _breaking,_ finally surrendering to the weight of all that had gone on, all the responsibilities that he had taken on, the lives of these Athenians that he would not be able to save.

His own death, too, without any idea of how to prevent it.

It was many hours before he returned to the shore, and when he did, he did not feel any better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your lovely comments - there is nothing better to nurse a fragile writer's motivation. *sends you all hugs*


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [first piece of art ](http://shinigami714.tumblr.com/post/120067610906/my-artwork-for-northerntrashs-story-the-heart-of)for this fic has arrived! Please go check out the wonderfully talented [shinigami714](http://shinigami714.tumblr.com/). Who's a lucky author?

The water was cool against the heat of the sun, and Bilbo remained in the sea for some time before he got out, floating lazily on his back watching the distant clouds drift backwards and forwards above him. His anger, his loneliness, the aching hopelessness abated slightly as he lay there in the water, replaced only with a circumspect dread that was low and lingering enough for him to ignore it for now, though he knew that as soon as he returned to the shore that it would engulf him once again.

All he had learnt since he had first arrived, all that had been whispered in darkened rooms late into the night, came back to him now, the voices of Princes whose faces would never be forgotten, dimly lit corners haunting him, in the brilliant sunshine.

Were they to be sacrificed to some bloody, vengeful God?

Were they to be sold to a slave trader, to be shipped off away to a distant shore to live the rest of their lives in servitude, to appease a great and awful war debt?

Were they to be eaten alive by the very hosts that had welcomed them with open arms and honeyed words?

He didn’t know, and there was no way of telling. He supposed that he would just have to wait until that evening, until it was too late to do anything about it.

And yet even now, alone and afraid, he knew that whatever fate they were to face, it would not be the King’s family that would have a hand in it – at least, not a direct hand. Thorin’s guilt and strange sadness were not of one who has had a part in cruelty, but one who has stood back and watched: Fili and Kili, laughing and so young, were still touched by a youthful innocence, too sweet and foolish to be evil.

But still.

How do you defeat a foe that you do not know, an evil that you have no name and face for? How do you rally your strength and bravery when you do not know what great injustice you have to face?

Bilbo was afraid, there was no denying that.

But he lay back in the water, not knowing what else to do, listening to the muted laughter of his kin, still lazing on the shore and dancing through the shallow waters, boys and girls both. He could not bring himself to lift his head to look at them, but the distant sound of them was making him feel slowly worse, ill with worry. They did not know that tonight would mark the last of these days of sunlight and plenty, the last of these luxurious moments of freedom.

How could he save them, as he had thought to?

How could he bring them home?

He had made no promises, sworn no oath to blood nor altar, but he had sworn to himself, a promise which was almost harder to break. No one would fault him if he failed but himself, a guilt that he would be unable to shift for the rest of his life, no matter how short that time might be.

He wished for a moment that he could swim further, out past the dangerous currents and the monstrous creatures that the stories told lingered in the depths of the sea, past the great trading ships and the foaming crescendos of waves, back to his home. If he had the promise of the Gods for his safety he would have been tempted to lead them all across the sea, and the temptation was there even without it.

But he was afraid, too afraid to lead his kin away across the water: he could not promise them a path to home only to fail them, he knew that well enough.

Perhaps another man might have just run away from it all: whilst he had no hope of smuggling fourteen of them off the island, it was possible that he could slip away, down to the port, steal away onto a ship. They might not find him until they had cast off, at which point he could have promised them ransom: his mother would have paid heavily to have him back, safe and well again.

He shook his head, the saltwater stinging his eyes.

No, she would have paid, and she would have been glad to see him, but she would have been ashamed too. Not of him, but of the fact that she had a child home and safe whilst all those other mothers would weep their years away over empty seats at family tables, over clothes that would never be worn again, over slowly fading memories. He could not do that to her, not to his mother, who had already given so much to her city.

It had been her promise, the one piece of solace she had been able to offer her kin: that she would give as much as they would, that she would sacrifice the same as them, should the Gods decide.

He would not make her forsake that promise.

Besides, he thought to himself as his hands moved slowly through the water, against the gentle rock of the tide that was moving slowly back towards the shore, he could not leave them.

They were his kin now, for all that that meant out here.

He would not abandon them to a miserable death, not alone.

 

* * *

Thorin found himself trailing after the distant sound of laughter, hesitant, not entirely sure what he was doing.

All of his life, he had understood his role, the part that he was supposed to play: he knew where he was supposed to stand and what was expected of him, when he was supposed to speak and when he should remain silent. Frerin had been right when he had warned him of their Grandfather’s anger – he remembered well enough Thror’s raging when Dis had first informed him that she had already made her choice of husband, not from lines of royal blood in great Kingdoms, but in a fisherman’s son, a man who wore scars of hard work and painful labour. Thror had come around in the end, but only because Dis had refused to be swayed, always the most fearless of any of them.

He ignored the steep and narrow lane down to the beach, and followed instead the wide and sandy path that lead along the cliff top, curving around the small bay below.

The sea was bright below him, the haze of that morning gone in the sky above, and he took a deep breath of the air, the musk of brine on his tongue.

Yes, Thror would be angry if he found out that Thorin had befriended one of the sacrifices, worst still if he had learnt that Thorin had perhaps thought of what might have grown between them, had they only the opportunity. His anger, though, would not be at the thought of Thorin leasing some physical frustration with a common man, nor that he was creating a tie below his station as Dis had done, but rather at Thorin’s own stupidity for letting affection grow where it was doomed to fail.

And it _was_ doomed, wasn't it? The stirrings in Thorin’s chest would mean nothing come the dawn, when the beast’s great roars would begin their song, echoing through the stone and the palace until none of them would be able to escape. Bilbo would be dead, and he...

Well, he would be left alone, surrounded by wealth that grew only more meaningless over time.

He glanced down to the shore, his eyes unable to say away any longer, searching for… well, searching for Bilbo, even though he was unwilling to admit it. He could not see him at first, not among the laughing victims and the servants assigned to watch them (and to ensure that they would not drift any further than the designated palace grounds). Many were swimming, or playing in the waves: several of the men were racing across the sand, some of the girls collecting shells and comparing the colours and hues, just as Dis had once done, many years ago.

She had once collected baskets full, using her finest bone needles to pierce them, so that she might weave them into bands to be worn around the wrists. He and Frerin had worn theirs for years, until they had eventually fallen apart, but he still had it somewhere, tucked away in a box, the shells worn smooth from the sea and from the years spent at the mercy of his distracted fingers.

Bilbo would look good, he couldn’t help but think, draped in long necklaces made of shells, of blue stone beads, of bright crystals and small pieces of silver.

And there he was, not by the shore at all, but out in the bay, his skin pale against the sea, lying on his back as if he were watching the sky. Unlike the others he seemed to look almost uncomfortable, despite the beauty of the day: even from here Thorin could see that his face was drawn into a frown, his lips tight against a jaw that might almost have been clenched in anger.

He was a small thing really, particularly in comparison to Thorin, almost a head smaller than him and slighter across the shoulders and chest, too: even Fili and Kili were taller and broader than Bilbo, and yet despite his initial caution the Athenian did not give off the impression that he was intimidated, or even a little quietened, by the presence of the Cretan Princes. Perhaps part of that was that he himself was of royal blood – no doubt he had never had to bow or scrape to anyone in his life, had grown up just as Thorin had, knowing who he was and that he was of worth.

But yet still, here he was, sent away from that home and that promise of a throne at the word of Thorin’s grandfather.

How could he let Bilbo face his family’s greatest shame without knowing what it was he would find down there in the dark, without any form of protection, without any preparation?

Despite the brevity of time that they have known each other for, despite his own better judgement and the preferences of his Grandfather, he found himself wanting, needing to help, in some way, and not just for Bilbo – for all the men and women that he had never done anything for, for all those who had died without him raising his voice or his hand to help.

He turned on his heel, away from the beach and back towards the palace.

 

* * *

He found Gandalf not in his rooms, as Thorin had expected, but in a quiet colonnade to the side of the main hall in the palace. He looked up at Thorin as he approached, with a small and quirking smile, as if he had known that Thorin would be coming to him soon enough.

That self-assurance was almost enough to make Thorin turn on his heel and leave, flaring the constantly low embers of his temper quickly enough, but he gritted his teeth and forced himself to approach, wondering if he might, for once, get something other than the vague and ambiguous responses that he had grown too used to being the recipient of when talking to the old maze-builder.

“And what should Prince Thorin want from me, this fine afternoon?” Gandalf asked as Thorin drew level with him.

The old man was dusting bread crumbs across a low wall, trying to encourage a bird closer, but his grey-blue eyes were focused neither on Thorin nor on the bread, but instead on the flickering movement of the bird’s wings, the curve of the feathers, the delicate motions of its body.

“I…” Thorin began, and then found himself unable to continue, not knowing exactly what there was to say.

Gandalf glanced up at him again, and smiled once more.

“It is time for my labyrinth to open once again tonight, if I have heard the whispers in the halls well enough with these old ears,” Gandalf remarked, his voice a little amused. He was the only that spoke of what lay beneath the palace so easily, as if it were just a distant cloud on the horizon of his thought, rather than the great overcast sky that Thorin was used to. And yet Thorin still suspected that Gandalf cared much more than he would ever have been willing to admit: after all, if he did not, he would have left long before now.

“Perhaps you are looking for something,” Gandalf remarked, after the long and steady silence that Thorin had been unable to break. “Something, yes, but you are not sure what that something is.”

Thorin’s eyebrows raised, unimpressed but not willing to tell Gandalf that he was wrong.

The old man hummed under his breath, the bird inching ever closer, and after a cautious moment it hopped onto Gandalf’s palm, fluttering its wings contentedly as it ducked its head to peck at the remaining crumbs that could be found. Gandalf ran one long finger down its back, smiling a little as the bird ruffled itself immediately after.

The bird was black, Thorin had thought at first, only now he could see that the feathers were more varied than that, the darkest of greens and blues shadowing together, like a darkened room at night: though at first you would see only that darkness, if you stared long enough you might see more in there – the red of the walls, the grey of the fireplace, the green of the fig leaves outside the windows.

“It is a rare thing,” Gandalf said, his voice much quieter now, and somehow more serious too, “to be in a time and a place where anything might happen, when the balance of what has been for such a very long time might finally tip, one way or the other.”

He reached into the deep pockets of his draped clothing, a small sigh escaping from a mouth that was quite suddenly no longer smiling.

Thorin did not know what he was expecting from Gandalf: some map, perhaps, some great weapon or potion that might finally offer a way to destroy the beast that had haunted this palace for so long. Thror himself had once tried to kill his creation, many years ago, and though he had never spoken of it Thorin had seen the great scars that ran down his broad back with his own eyes, when he was just a boy.

Frerin had been young, and Dis still an infant, and he had woken to the dawn one morning in a heavy and sweltering summer, uncomfortably warm in his bedcovers. He had not bothered to wake his brother or parents, had just ran past the servants, ducking in and out of corridors until he had found his way out of the palace, to the cliff above the beach – he had spent many days that summer escaping the heat in the sea. He had run down that steep path, pebbles making him stumble, but he had been young and wild and used to that, and had righted himself swiftly. Only, when he had reached the sand, he had found that he was not alone down there as he had expected to be – across the sand, standing waist deep in the sea, had been his grandfather.

Even at that age Thorin had understood, somehow, that this was something that he was not supposed to see, and so he did not cry out to Thror. His long hair – already silver by then, though still with a few black-and-grey streaks remaining – was braided up, as he wore it to sleep, and his chest was bare, the great strength of his shoulders tense, though he did not wield blade and spear as he had once done.

And there, great raking scars that might have been from some great wild beast, curving across Thror’s shoulder and down to his back, a map of ruined flesh patched together as best as it could have been.

Thorin had turned, then, and run back to his mother, who had made him promise never to ask his Grandfather about them.

Thror had been the one of the greatest warriors that had ever been known, once, and yet his spear had been shattered by great hands that ended in claws, not nails, and his sword had shattered against flesh protected not by the softness of skin nor armour, but by great gold and bronze scales, harder than any metal. Anything that Gandalf would think to give would surely be something of great power-

And from his pocket, he drew first a ball of twine, and then a small blade, barely the size of Thorin’s palm.

“This is it?” he found himself asking, despite himself. “This is what you have to defeat the beast?”

Gandalf shrugged, and turned back to his bird.

“Sometimes it is the smallest of things that can change the course of fate,” he replied, and with a brief sound of joy the bird took wing from his hand, flying away, up and out of the courtyard into the sky above.

Thorin tested the edge of the blade against his thumb, and though he was expecting something sharp there was no way to ignore just how swiftly it sliced through his skin, and the way that the light caught the shine of it.

“Is this…” he began, and Gandalf nodded with a smile.

“The last of the great mithril mines of the south,” he said, quietly. “Gone long before you were born, my lad. I’ve kept this little blade for a great many years, just waiting for the right moment.”

Thorin stared down at it, almost unable to believe what he was seeing.

“Now go,” Gandalf told him, “and pass those both along, if you truly want to do something. But make sure that it is both: the blade means nothing without the twine, you know.”

Thorin did turn to leave, but right before he did something struck him.

“Why can’t you just tell me a way to get out of your labyrinth?” he asked, frowning. Gandalf laughed, then, a bright sound at odds with everything else that was going on.

“I never make a puzzle that anyone can solve, Thorin,” Gandalf said, still half laughing, though it was quickly becoming a more bitter sound. “Even myself.”

 

* * *

Thorin slipped back out of the palace in the slowly growing shadows of the late afternoon, the sun gradually following its course down the sky towards the horizon, carefully avoiding his nephews, who were chasing each other around a colonnade, even though their cheers were a little less enthusiastic than normal. Where had the day gone? Just that morning he had thought that there were enough hours left to make a decision about what he was to do, but already there was only an hour or so left until he needed to dress for the last feast, and he was running out of time. He picked up his pace as he approached the cliff, suddenly worried that he might have missed them altogether, that he might find the beach empty, and deserted.

But when he arrived he found that he was not too late. Bilbo was just making his way out of the sea when Thorin reached the top of the narrow path, many of the Athenians already having left, and he waited a while at the top until Bilbo and one servant were all that were left.

The beach was sheltered in the cove, quiet and still from the wind, and he took a more sedate path down the twisting length of path than he had when he was a child. By the time he reached the bottom the servant was staring up at the clifftop, clearly desperate to leave: Thorin dismissed her quickly, and she darted away without a backwards glance.

It was only then that Bilbo finally realised that he was there, glancing up at him with some barely concealed surprise.

There was a pause that was almost awkward.

“It is a good afternoon,” Bilbo said, seeming neither pleased nor unhappy to see him.

Thorin swallowed, and nodded, a little unsure.

"It is nearly over," he replied, without thinking, something in his chest tightening at the ghost of fear that flickered across Bilbo's eyes.

It had only been a handful of hours since he had last seen him, across the great hall that morning, and little had changed since then, but Thorin felt for a moment as if it was the first time they were seeing each other in years, as if some lengthy journey overseas had kept them apart from each other – though of course Thorin had never left the island to know, and he had only known Bilbo a scant few days besides; though it felt as if he had known him far longer. But still, he could not shake the feeling that something had changed, though perhaps it was not in how Bilbo looked, but in how Thorin felt, his resolve finally having been found, a decision made.

Bilbo’s eyes were slightly red from the salt water, his hair damp still despite the last efforts of the sunlight, a darker copper now it was wet, sand sticking up around his legs. He was a mess, and there was a certain sadness around his eyes, but he looked beautiful for it all.

Perhaps even because of it all. Standing right here, he was neither a Prince nor a tribute, just a man.

And Thorin, well. He did not feel like a Prince either, nor like a member of the family who was sending Bilbo to his death. He was just a man as well, standing in the sand as the sun set, in front of another, who he had felt as if he had known for years.

The corner of Bilbo’s mouth quirked, a little uncertain.

“I must speak to you,” Thorin said, quickly, glancing around them even though they were alone down here on the beach. The shadows seemed to be growing longer with every passing moment, and Thorin strode quickly over, beckoning Bilbo to follow him into a shallow gap in the cliff, where two spurs of rock had grown forwards, leaving a small space in between where two men might stand, unseen from any other who might come to the edge of the cliff above.

“There will be a feast tonight,” Thorin started, unsure of what to say. “And…”

“I know, Thorin,” Bilbo said, reaching out to touch his arm, trying to reassure him. “I mean, I don’t know what will happen to us, but I know that it will be tonight.”

Thorin stared at him, surprised for a moment, and Bilbo shrugged.

“I… overheard a conversation between your father and Bard this morning,” he admitted, and despite himself the corner of Thorin’s mouth twitched upwards, a little amused.

“Of course you did,” Thorin said, shaking his head a little.

There was silence between them then, silence enough to make it a little awkward that Bilbo’s hand was still resting against Thorin’s arm, though Thorin felt a stab of regret when that hand was withdrawn to run through damp hair, instead.

The sun must finally have reached the end of its slow descent: outside of their small cave the light was slowly being stained red, the sand taking on a bloody gold hue in the small beach. They could not see the sea from here, but its sound was all around them, echoing in the small space, louder that it should have been, and Thorin could picture it, the slow movement of black and pink and red against the dusk, the great eye of the sun in the sky – he could picture even clearer the way that Bilbo’s hair might look in light like that, how it might look if his eyes were bright with those reflected colours.

“I could ask,” he found himself saying, not sure of himself. “Grandfather doesn’t know that you are a Prince, who your mother is – if I were to tell him, I could convince him- ”

Bilbo shook his head, interrupting Thorin.

“No,” he replied, quietly. “No. I can’t leave them, you must understand that. I am their Prince, but more than that now I am their brother. I cannot let them face whatever it is that is to come, without facing it by their side.”

Thorin felt something plummet in his chest, some brief and fluttering hope that he hadn’t even known was there, but he did understand.

“Then,” he said, fumbling for the small things that Gandalf had given him. “Then take these, here.”

He pressed them into Bilbo’s hands, careful with the small blade that could so easily cut him accidentally.

“It’s sharp,” he said, his voice a little hoarse and pitched low. “And small enough to hide, though no one will think to check you for weapons before they take you… in.”

Bilbo nodded, and though he did consider asking Thorin for more information for a moment, he decided against it.

“What am I to do with these?” he asked, tucking the small blade into his belt with barely a look at it, though he continued to turn the twine around his hands for a few moments, the rough scratch of it almost reassuring against his fingertips.

“I’m sorry,” Thorin told him, his voice low and deep, enough to send a ripple of shivers down Bilbo’s back. The narrow space that they were in felt as intimate as the courtyard that dark night, but charged in a very different way now, the knowledge that they had even less time left now leaving them tense, though not uncomfortable.

Bilbo wanted to ask why he was sorry, why Thorin felt so much guilt for something that was not of his doing, but there was a desperation in the way that Thorin was looking at him, a certain fear, and his mouth parted just a little, though there was nothing left to be said between them.

Thorin wouldn’t have been able to answer him even if Bilbo had asked why he looked that way, would not have been able to find the words to speak after this long day – he felt as if he had used up all the words that he might ever have had to use, all the energy too, as if he were dragging himself along on nothing more than effort and determination.

But despite all that, here he was, in a quiet cave full of the red light of the dying day, the shadows cooler now around them, a flutter of wind lifting his hair and the taste of the sea in his mouth.

“I…” he started again, swallowing down his grief. “I am sorry,” he said again, before he found his hands on his Bilbo’s face, cradling his jaw, the ends of his fingers caught in the damp curls of Bilbo’s hair.

He hadn’t meant to touch him, not like this: but it was as he had half thought it would be. The moment he touched him, the moment his hands felt that skin under his own, there was no way for him to let go.

And then Bilbo was kissing him, his mouth hot and falling open under Thorin’s, his skin still slightly chill to the touch from spending so much time in the water, rough from the salt that had dried on him from the sea. Then there was stone against his back as Bilbo pushed him against the rock wall, warm still from the sun and rough, almost painful, and there were hands clenching against Thorin’s shoulders, holding on as if they were caught in some sea, the waves closing in, as if they were both afraid of drowning.

 _Maybe they were_ , Thorin couldn’t help but think as Bilbo’s body pressed close against his.

Maybe they already had.

He had thought that they were ghosts, after all.

Maybe they were both already dead, and this was just a dream.

                                                      

* * *

When had they parted? Bilbo was not entirely sure. He couldn’t have told you how long they had spent in that quiet cave, but certainly the vivid reds of the dying sun had faded to the lightest of shades by the time they finally parted, rushing back to their rooms in order to bathe before the feast. It was only as Bilbo was slipping the two small gifts from Thorin into his pockets, arranging them so that they would not be seen, that he remembered his fear.

Tonight he would meet his fate, and yet right up until this moment he had managed to forget about it.

The press of Thorin’s mouth against his, the heat of his body in the dying light, had been enough to push it from his mind almost entirely.

He was as bad, he thought to himself as he hurried to straighten his hair (damp again, but this time slick from the scented oils of the bath rather than the saltwater) in the looking glass, as the rest of the Athenians, who only this afternoon he had thought of as fluttering birds, too distracted by the beauty of his surroundings to notice the bars of their cage: he himself had been just as easily distracted by Thorin’s own presence, by his earnest desire to find a way to save him, by the warmth of his embrace.

But that lingering memory faded fast as soon as he entered the dining room (only a little late) to see the grim expressions of the King and his family, sat up at the royal table, watching their guests with pained expressions. His friends, sat around him, grew quieter as the evening carried on and the night grew darker, the stars outside the hall growing brighter still, looking down at them with a distant indifference. He was not entirely sure if it was his own low mood that had effected them this way, or the grim expressions at the high table, and though he had at times found the laughter of his friends frustrating, he found that he now longed for it to return. Their joy was a much better thing to weather than the sullen silence that had fallen upon them now, the men and women picking at their food, unhappy and unable to work up too much of an appetite.

He was unsurprised when, after the plates were finally cleared, several guards were summoned into the hall: what had surprised him, though, was the lack of exclamation from around his table.

It seemed that the low mood had reminded the others of why they were there: when the King stood, and ushered the rest of the hall to follow him to their feet, there was nothing but the occasional quiet whisper between the other Athenians.

He glanced to one side, as Primula took hold of his hand, and squeezed it.

He wasn’t sure if she was giving comfort or seeking it, but he squeezed her own back.

They were escorted from the room, all of them eerily quiet now. The guards were armed, but they did not have their weapons drawn, and neither did it seem as if they were on any particular edge: they were not expecting any protest, were not expecting them to fight back, and for a moment Bilbo felt for the small, sharp blade in his pocket, wondering at what he might have achieved had he been a more violent sort of man.

The main halls were empty, no servants bustling to and fro as you might have expected at that hour.

Soon enough they were led from them and down darker corridors, past long winding hallways and shadowy rooms, to a great barred door. Beyond that was just a narrow staircase, twisting and dusty, leading down. There were no torches lit down there, the only light coming from the ones carried by the guards, but Bilbo could not draw any more fear from himself: already he felt a terror that he had never before experienced, holding a tight leash around his chest. It felt as if his ribs were tightening, slowly, as if they were a vice, leaving him cold, and almost lightheaded.

The walls down here were painted, almost bloody looking, and the dancing birds and lotus flowers found upstairs were gone.

And then they were at the bottom of the stairs, faced with a long corridor, and a wide room at the end. It was bare of anything but the great doors that stood on the opposite side, huge double doors that were barred. No one would ever have been able to get through those doors, Bilbo thought to himself, before he realised.

The locks were on this side of the door. It was not to keep someone out…

But to keep something in.

Bilbo glanced to the side, and caught the eye of a guard, who attempted to keep his composure: he succeeded, for a moment, before his expression crumpled, and he was forced to look away.

The King strode forwards, standing in front of the door.

Bilbo tried to take a step backwards, but the press of bodies around him was too much, too close, and he found that he could not move away, not enough. _Be brave_ , he tried to tell himself, his mother’s voice echoing in his mind, but it was not enough: the cold fear was suddenly too much, and he barely listened to the King as he spoke before them, his booming voice quiet and regretful now as he slipped into a dialect that Bilbo could barely follow. The sound of hoofs against the floor was suddenly loud, but before he could work out what great beast was approaching it was already there, led by guards, a great white bull.

He felt strangely distant, as if he was not really there, just some spirit looking down at this scene.

They slit the bull’s throat, its blood spilling on the floor as well as into the golden basin that was being held in place.

The stench of it filled his nostrils, made him want to retch, thick and bloody and impossible to ignore.

From somewhere behind them came a low drumbeat, slow, echoing through the stone so solidly that he was sure that he could feel it in his own veins, his own body joining in with the sound.

Thror was going from one to the next now, smearing the blood – still warm, still so warm – across their foreheads, as if they themselves were about to be sacrificed on some great altar.

And they were, weren’t they? This was why they were here.

Tributes. Victims.

A line of blood dripped from Thror’s fingertips down Bilbo’s face: he had to blink it out of his eyes, but his arms were no longer working, he couldn't raise his hand to wipe it away.

It was then that he looked up, away from the twitching body of the bull and the great door sin front of him, behind which the Gods only knew lay, and through the line of Athenians he saw him.

Standing there, his face blank.

For a moment Bilbo was certain that Thorin must have felt nothing at this sight, as used to it as he must have been, but then Thorin caught his gaze.

There was no way to misconstrue the expression in his eyes, the guilt and shame.

They were thanked for their service: or at least, Bilbo thought that that was what was being said, though he was barely listening still, the heavy beat of the drums and his own heart too loud in his head to hear much of anything. The panic was still threatening to overwhelm him, but before it could his fingers brushed against a shape in the line of his tunic.

Thorin’s gifts.

He stuck his hands in his pockets, grasping hold of them quickly. The blade bit into his palm, far sharper than he had realised, but the pain made him focus, brought him back from the shadow of that growing panic.

The twine was rough against his fingers, too.

He took a deep breath, and then another.

The doors were opening.

Thorin was mouthing something at him, but he couldn’t make out what he was saying, and they were already being pushed forward, led towards those open doors, and the darkness beyond.

There was no light in there, and they were given no torches.

He turned to see the doors being shut on them, the light slowly disappearing.

The last thing he saw, before they closed, was Thror, watching them all, standing as close to the doors as he could get without being trapped inside himself.

There was blood on his hands, dripping from his fingers down the white robes he was wearing.

But that was not what stuck in Bilbo’s mind in those last moments: not the blood, not the heavy crown, not the great looming height of him.

No, what Bilbo would remember, for many years to come, was Thror’s eyes.

He was crying.


	5. Chapter 5

Every seven years, Bilbo had watched those ships.

Every seven years, he had sat and stared until they passed over the horizon, until those white sails had finally disappeared, until the sunlight hurt his eyes and they began to sting, with tears and with pain.

He’d done that since he was a child, since before he’d even really understood what it was he was doing. He’d done it because his mother did, because even as a child barely able to walk he’d understood that there was something wrong, that she needed something from him. It had never felt like a burden, never like an obligation.

She’d have done that alone this year. No husband, no son.

He knew that she would have been as strong as she had ever been, her back as straight and her jaw as firm.  He had never known a woman as brave as her.

Every seven years, Bilbo had watched her comfort, watched her console, and then had listened to her crying herself to sleep for weeks afterwards.

He had cried before, too.

Every seven years, he had sat on the docks through the days afterwards, the coarse wood underneath him and the salt spray in his face. The fishermen always left in silence in the weeks after the reaping, without any of the jocular calls or laughter that you might expect at any other time. The sea always seemed rougher than normal, the birds overhead quieter, as if the world itself was reacting to the collective grief of a city, as if the Gods were screaming along with them.

He would go down to those docks for weeks, watching the sky.

The parents of the youths that were sent away each time were always there, and he would continue to go until they began to stop, until real life forced its way through the grief and they were forced to resume with normality. Only, how could life ever be normal for them again? How could those parents ever go back to life, to the life that they had had before, when a child that they had loved and cherished, nursed and raised, had been torn from them, ripped from their breasts, from their homes, sent away to a some distant and pitiless fate?

Those parents remained vigilant at the shore, for as long as they could: normally, until those ships came back, returned to the city, without the passengers that they had carried away from them.

His mother would have been one of them this year, wouldn’t she?

She would have waited at the shoreline, the salt spray in her hair, her eyes on the horizon, an impossible hope pulling her down the rocky path every day.

Would she still have a place laid at the table for him?

Would she take his clothes from his room and give them away?

Would she tear the skin of her palms beating at the walls, when that ship came back empty?

Bilbo closed his eyes, and tried to remember how to breathe.

His mother – his home, his city, everything that he has ever known and loved – was far away from here.

 

* * *

 

 

Sounds, so many sounds in the dark, and now his eyes were closed as if he was trying to force them out, but he couldn’t escape – not from the noise, not from this space, not from the damn island – and if anything they seemed to grow louder. The panicked noise of his kin was omnipresent, all around him, whimpers in the dark, heavy breathing. Someone was crying close to him, and he reached out though he could not see, did not know who it was: his hand found an arm, and he squeezed it gently, not knowing if it was the crying person or not. His own panic was building in his chest, hot and flaring, gripping tight, as if his ribs were compressing, as his chest was just going to continue closing in until it caved entirely, and he was left for dead, clawing for breath on cold stone floors.

He opened his eyes again, but it made no difference – the room that they were in was dark enough that he couldn’t see a thing. The only light was a thin bar of flickering candlelight from underneath the great bronze doors.

Where were they?

His breath caught in his throat.

A sound in the dark had broken through the clamour of the other Athenians, their calls for mercy, the sound of hands beating against bronze.

Something… something slithering against stone flags, something that might have been laughter, from far away, echoing towards them.

Echoing?

How big was this space?

He pressed a hand against his chest, as if enough pressure might be able to stop its frantic beating, his other fist in his mouth, the copper bright taste of blood on his tongue as he bit too hard, trying to choke back his scream, everything too much, the dark too close, the fear too real and too much, just all of this too much, his head swimming, and-

He shifted, and there was a sharp prick against his hip, startling him out of the slow spiral of panic that he had begun to slip into.

His hand slipped to his pocket, wrapping around the chilly hilt of the small blade that Thorin had pressed into his hands only a couple of hours previously.

Thorin had believed in him, hadn’t he?

He took a deep breath, and then another, and then reached back for the person closest to him, taking hold of their hand in the dark, whispering calming words to them until they started to breathe more regularly again. When they had seemed to get a little more control, he reached out again, and found another hand, taking them out of their fear and panic next, and when both were feeling better he pressed their hands together: one by one he went around the Athenians, talking to them gently, until all thirteen of the others were standing, hand in hand, quiet. There was still the sounds of muffled sniffing, the occasional heavy sigh that was just a little broken, but now they could hear the quiet sound of footsteps from outside the door, the wrecked sobs from somewhere outside that Bilbo could not bring himself to think about, not right now.

“We’re okay,” he told his friends, one more time.

He didn’t think that they believed him, not really, but they made sounds of agreement in response, as if they were trying to comfort him as much as he was trying to look after them.

He felt in his pocket, for the twine this time.

“Prim,” he whispered to the darkness. “Prim, where are you?”

Her voice was closer than he had expected, to his right, and he turned in the direction of where he thought she was.

“Can you feel anywhere that I could tie something up?”

She made a considering noise, and there was the sound of a hand brushing against stone, against bronze.

“There is something here, by the door – I don’t know, it feels like something that you might attach a chain to?”

He nodded, and swallowed.

“Here, tie this on to that, will you?” he said, his voice still quiet, as if he was afraid of someone overhearing them, already certain that there was something down here with them, someone other than the fourteen Athenians in this darkness. Primula made a noise as if she was about to question why, but she bit it back at the last moment, and Bilbo was thankful for that. When she told him it was secure he pulled at it, the knot remaining firm.

“I’m going to go and see what it out there,” he told them, wishing that he could see anything of their faces, their expressions, the soft glimmer of their eyes in firelight, wishing that he could see anything at all. “Stay here, by the door, and stay safe. Prim, keep a hand on the twine and make sure that it doesn’t come off, okay?”

There were more murmurs of agreement, sounds that were questioning, but he ignored them, reaching a hand in front of himself, taking a step forward, away from the meagre comfort of the light from under the door, away from the warmth of the clustered body of his kin, away from Thorin, who might still have been standing behind that door, as afraid as they were.

No wall met his outstretched hand, no cool rasp of stone; he took another step, and then another.

This was not a room, nor even a cave, as he had first thought: this was a tunnel.

His eyes gradually adjusted to the dark, until he could make out the walls on either side of him, though all they appeared to be to him was one shade of grey against another. The touch of the stone was a little reassuring though, smooth as if it had been carved, a fixed reminder that this was but the hand of man, that he was not following some downwards twisting route to the Underworld. The stone, however, was gouged here and there as if by some great beast, and his fingers lingered on those scars in the rock each time he came across one of them.

Those were much less comforting.

The thread wound out behind him as the dark encompassed him; soon enough the tunnel twisted, and he could no longer see the light from beneath the door; not long after he could barely hear the cries of his kin, calling out to him. He had only guessed what he was supposed to do with the twine, but it seemed that he had been lucky: already he was not certain that he would have been able to make his way back to where he had started. He had no idea which direction might be best to turn, and after a while he stopped trying to use any kind of logic to work it out.

He picked them at random; first a left, because his bedroom door was on the left hand side at home. Next he might go right, because that was the direction he turned at the bottom of the stairs to go to his mother’s study, where he spent many an afternoon cloistered away with her great and weighty tomes, learning the lore of the land that he might one day rule over. A right again, this time because he went right from the palace gates to walk to the schools where he and his friends debated the great stories of the past; left this time because if you turned left down the coastline from the Athenian port then you would come to a small and secluded beach, tucked away, catching the light from the sun for most of the day, a place where he had often gone to find a moment of peace, alone. Another left; Drogo lived to the left of him; right this time, for the olive tree growing to the right of his bedroom window, the one which he had used so many times to escape from nagging tutors and responsibilities that he now found himself missing, _so much._

Right, because his father used to tell him that there was no wrong turning taken that doing the right thing wouldn’t fix, wouldn’t set you on a good course again.

He was a good man, Bilbo’s father, a wise old thing in his autumn years.

What would he have had to say about this?

What would he have had to say about Thorin?

And Thorin – had he ever been in here? Why had he given Bilbo this blade, this thread, why had he tried to help him and none of the others that had come before him?

He swallowed back the pain in his throat, the tight and clenching feeling, for he thought for a moment that he might weep, down here in the dark, so suddenly overwhelmed by the darkness and the press of the walls and the fear, oh Gods, the fear-

He forced himself to stop, a hand against the wall, the scrape of the twine in his hand, and count slowly, in his head. Now was not the time to lose his head, to let his fear take over his mind, for all that it seemed so easy to let it, to ruin this veneer of calm that he had thrown up in deference to his desire to find a solution to the problem, because there was _always_ a solution, always an answer.

He thought instead of Thorin, of the way that the sea had felt against his skin only that afternoon, of the taste of Thorin’s mouth, the way that he had kissed, the warmth of the press of his body, of the strange and beautiful way that his eyes would drift to the horizon, searching and longing, as if waiting for a ship too bear him away. A bird in a cage, as much as Bilbo was, as much as all the Athenians were, only Thorin’s cage was the guilt, the weight of crimes from generations before him, of things that he had had no hand in. He thought of Bard’s grave face, and the way that Dis stared at them with almost no expression, Fili and Kili’s laughter as they ran through the colonnades, through the bars of sunlight and the shadows cast by the columns, stripes of them across the marble, flickering past quicker and quicker as the boys ran ever faster, until they were just a blur of gold and black, constant movement, almost a comfort here in the still darkness.

They might have been friends, in another life. They might have known each other better.

And Thorin.

Could they have been something more, had they not met here, had Bilbo not been a prisoner of Thorin’s family, had all this not rested between them?

He took a deep breath and started walking again, and thought once more of those brief moments in tucked away in the great scar in the cliff face, surrounding by the red light of the dying day, of the warmth between them, of the way that Thorin’s hands had held his face, brushing the damp curls from his cheeks, touching him as if he were something precious, something that might break if it was not handled carefully enough.

Yes, he realised, down there in the dark of the labyrinth. Yes, they could have been something.

That was of no comfort to him now.

Onwards he went, the twisting route growing ever more complicated, certain that but for the twine in his hands that he would never have been able to find his way back to the others, back to the door. Sometimes he could hear footsteps, moving around him, echoing through the stone, but he was never sure if they were his own or if they belonged to someone else, something else, something that lived down here in the darkness with only the looming fear of death for company.

Once, twice, three times he called to the dark, convinced that there was someone close by – Primula perhaps, following him, the brave girl seeking to support him, to aid him in whatever it was that he might face? But each time his own words simply echoed back to him, the only reply that the maze was willing to give him.

What if there was nothing to find down here? What if this was just a vast, empty maze, ancient: what if this was just a tradition that went past beyond memory, beyond rational thought? Would he starve to death before the twisting tunnels drove him mad?

He paused, quite suddenly, at a familiar sound, one that he had heard not all that long ago, one that seemed fitting for the dark.

A slither, yes, that was the only way to describe it, scales across stone, and waited for a hiss that for a moment he was sure would follow. A snake, down here? But no, that sound had had too much weight to it. Only the greatest of serpents could have made a noise like that; no normal worm could have been large enough, surely?

He continued to keep a tight rein on his fear, though it was ever present, pushing at the bars he threw down, strong enough that he began to think that it would break out, leave him shivering in a corner somewhere down here, lost and alone and oh, so afraid. He thought instead of his mother’s eyes and his father’s laughter, the view from his bedroom window, the warmth of a sun-kissed breeze against his skin, the taste of fair wine and Phoenician pipe smoke, the faces of all of those that he had ever loved, and yes, Thorin too, the way that his hair had looked in the moonlight, the soft stroke of his fingers across Bilbo’s skin, the line of his profile against the shadows of a dim courtyard, the scent of night-blooming larkspurs in a darkness that had been far gentler than the one that he was trapped in.

And as he continued, he began to think at first that he truly was going mad, for now he could make out the corners as they appeared more clearly; at first it was a barely noticeable change, but as he pressed on it became brighter. But there was no light down here, was there? No light, either faint or strong, and so this must just have been in his own mind, yet it seemed so real…

And then finally, he turned a corner, and found not another tunnel, but a great central chamber, the walls the same stone blocks that the whole place was made of, but the floor piled high with gold, with armour, with bones.

The heart of the maze: here it was, at last.

Some of the piles of treasure were almost as tall as he was, and he darted back into the shadows of the tunnel before he had really processed exactly what he was seeing, his body at least still reacting to a natural instinct of preservation. For there should be no place with as much discarded armour as this, the relics of the greatest of soldiers, left down here. The bones, too – so many dead, left unburied, without the rites that they deserved, the rites that would allow them to pass from this world to the next.

How many ghosts lingered in these tunnels, waiting for the funerary rites that would set them free?

He shivered for a moment, as if he could already feel them touching him, invisible fingers stroking across his skin, close enough to feel their presence without actually touching.

Something moved, the clink of gold shaking him from his thoughts, and Bilbo started.

Across the chamber was a beast, the likes of which he had never known, the kind of which he had thought existing only in the oldest of stories, the ones which always ended in death, and wailing grief.

That was certainly the torso of a man, lean with muscle and somehow longer than it should be, as if he had been stretched out, as if his ribcage contained just a few too many bones. His skin seemed to glow, somehow golden despite the fact that he still couldn’t work out where the light was coming from, for there were no torches, no fires to keep the darkness of the labyrinth at bay, nothing but the gold, the bones, the rotting smell of the long dead. He pulls himself along on thickly corded arms, for his hips trail not into legs as Bilbo had first thought but into some serpentine tail, red and gold and fearsome still, and Bilbo had to stifle the cry that was trying to force itself from his mouth, for it was then that he realised that it was not skin that adorned the creatures bones but scales, scales that shone like metal, with some furious glow, beautiful but so otherworldly that Bilbo was struck with terror, was unable to move, for the longest of moments.

That was where the light was coming from – not from flames nor an oil lamp, but from the beast himself, glowing with some indignant fury, the light of him reflecting off all this gold and metal, so that the chamber in the heart of the maze looked more like as if it were on fire than in the center of an underground maze.

What was this creature? How had he ended up down here?

When he dared to look at the creature’s face he thought for a moment that he must finally have died, that all this was some horror of Tartarus, for surely nothing such as this could breathe the air of the same world that Bilbo had always known?

His jaw was extended, jutting far from his face, like one of the great beasts from across the seas, and the scales seemed even thicker. He had no hair, and the bones of what passed for his face protruded dramatically from cheeks, from his forehead, his nose great slits in his face, and his eyes-

Oh, his eyes.

They had once been the same red-gold as his scales, Bilbo was sure, or else some deep and burning copper. But now they were milky, unfocused, and the scales around them were discoloured, great scars lacerating his face from some old wound which had left him blinded, down here in the dark.

The beast inhaled, a deep and long breath, and then laughed.

It’s voice was deep, far deeper than any voice had a right to be, and it seemed to fill Bilbo, take control of his body so that for a moment he was tempted to walk forward, to touch those scales, to feel the dread beauty of this monster with his own hands. It was only the prick of the knife, still against his hip, when he shifted to move, that kept his mind his own, that shook the strange spell from his mind.

“You are a brave little fool for seeking me out, child,” the beast told him, his tail moving restlessly against the stone flagged floor. “Normally it is quite a game, hunting down my prey through these tunnels.”

There was a grim flicker of a forked tongue in the horror that was its face; Bilbo caught sight of teeth, long and sharp, wicked in the golden light.

“Normally they scatter like rabbits, down here in the dark,” the beast said, moving a little closer to the tunnel where Bilbo was standing. Without quite thinking of what he was doing he darted across a portion of the room to another entrance: so many tunnels opened into this room that he had quite the choice, light footed enough to avoid knocking any of the towering piles of gold – for now.

The beast paused, sniffing the air for a moment, and then stilled, his head still glancing from side to side, searching for something.

“Why have you come here?” the beast asked, and Bilbo swallowed.

“To look in awe at a creature who has spawned so many stories! Your fame has truly spread, as has the fear of your great claws-” for he had caught sight of those claws finally, long and sharp and sitting at the end not of great paws of some kind but at the end of fingers, very human fingers but for their length, stretching much further from their scarred and scaled palms that ever they should have.

The beast laughed again.

“Fame!” he bellowed into the dark. “Fame! Long have I been trapped down here, little rabbit, long have I been kept in the dark. I doubt you even know my name, for if I know Thror, he will have made sure that it has never been spoken since the day he blinded me and trapped me down here, too weak to finish the job and end my life, too much of a coward to let me end his!”

Bilbo said nothing, but that in itself was obviously enough for the creature: it threw back its head, blind eyes staring at the stone ceiling above them, lips curled back in a snarl, the long line of his sharp teeth enough to rekindle the embers of fear in Bilbo’s chest once more.

“Smaug!” he bellowed. “I am Smaug, greatest of calamities, and when I find a way out of this cursed maze I will burn every city to the ground, destroy everything that Thror has ever _known,_ end the miserable lives of every creature on this damned island!”

Bilbo darted once more, to another tunnel, not quite lightly enough this time, as he accidentally knocked a great chalice, which went crashing into a bronze breast plate, engraved with some great and screaming God from another time. Smaug turned, almost too quickly to see, in the direction of the noise, and Bilbo veered, jumping over the end of a flickering tail and landing lightly on the other side, continuing his dash to another tunnel, his heartbeat so loud in his own ears that he was certain that Smaug must have been able to hear it.

It was then, just as Smaug bellowed his anger to the ceiling once more, that Bilbo saw it.

Nestling between the piles of gold, shining blue with some strange kind of ethereal light, lit with its own phosphorescence, rather than the glow of Smaug’s scales: a great stone, smeared with the brown-red of the blood of his victims, though still bright even so, the light flickering through it in such a way that it almost looked as if it were pulsing, throbbing… like a heart.

He swallowed, and glanced once more at Smaug.

There, on his chest, right above where his heart would be had he been anything like men in that regard – a small discolouration, faded and old, as if it had been done to Smaug when he was just an infant, if a monster like this had ever been such a thing.

“Have they ever told you where I come from?” Smaug asked the darkness, his tail still lashing. Bilbo had barely caught his breath, but still he shook his head, now _wanting_ to know.

“Surely,” he said, as he prepared to dash across the room once more, “Surely something as great as you must be the work of the hand of some truly formidable God?”

Smaug seemed to grin wider, and this time, when he swung his head backwards and forwards it seemed to be done with more deliberation, as if he were becoming wise to Bilbo’s tricks.

“No God, little rabbit. It was Thror that made me, sent mad as he lusted for power and for blood, desiring some pet that would lead his armies and devastate his foes!”

Something cold flickered in Bilbo’s chest, some horror that he had no name for, that he had never known: the beast before him was one of the worst things that he had ever laid his eyes on, but it was nothing compared to the knowledge that it had been a man who had brought it into creation, that Smaug lived due to the greed of one man.

“But the Gods did have a hand in it,” Smaug said, his clawed hand reaching for the strange blue stone that Bilbo had seen before, cradling it carefully, stroking the surface of it gently. The light made the scars across his face look almost silver for a moment, before he tucked it carefully back where it had come from.

“They grew tired of Thror’s bloodshed and the prayers sent by the thousands from the cities that his armies ransacked, and they grew angry at his arrogance, as it desire for a fame equal to their own. And so they gave the great beast a mind of its own, to fight back at its master with his whips and his chains, and a heart separate from its body, so that Thror would never be able to kill it, for all his strength, for all his swords. For they see only the claws and the teeth, not the beauty of its scales, and no man ever takes the time to notice when a creature’s heart is broken.”

Smaug snorted, so disconcertingly human in its sound, and a claw scratched against the surface of that blue stone again.

“None of them have ever realised that I no longer have a heart,” he muttered, more to himself than to Bilbo, and then he smiled again.

“But down here, deep in the darkness, I can smell everything, and I can hear the heart beat of fear in the air, fluttering like that of a lamb being lead to the slaughter! I followed you down here, little rabbit, as you scurried through my tunnels, watched you from the shadows, tasted your sadness on the air. Did you truly think that you would find a way to escape me? None can find their way out of the maze. Not even I, who have spent more years here than I can count!”

Bilbo darted once more, to the tunnel that had first lead him to this chamber, and felt for the ball of twine which he had dropped before his first dash. And there it was, tucked just out of sight in the shadows, and he paused for a moment, one eye on the best, the roughness of the twine familiar after the barrage of information that he had not known before.

He was horrified to learn that this, that all of this, had been done by Thror, and yet  at least he understood now the grief that was in the old man’s eyes, and count not bring himself to doubt the sincerity of the grief that he so clearly felt, the remorse for his actions as clear as the scars on his skin  - and which of those scars had been given not in war, but by this beast, who Thror had tried to kill with his own hands, taking the burden of the beast on himself, unaided.

“Why do you ask for so few men and women?” he asked, suddenly curious: he had to tuck the twine out of sight and leave the tunnel quickly, for he had not quite meant to ask, and he was barely hidden in the shadows of another by the time that Smaug answered. He was no longer moving his head as if trying to work out where Bilbo was, and that was worrying: either he knew, and was now just playing with Bilbo, or-

Well, he couldn’t really think of an alternative.

“Do you really think,” Smaug said, his voice suddenly quiet, the gold of his scales growing all the more brightly. “Do you really think that yours is the only city that sends me tribute?”

Bilbo with struck, then, with a great and terrible anger, one that he had not thought to find down here in the darkness. But there it was, burning strong, like wildfire on the hills, as fierce as any beast that he might find in the forgotten corners of the world, and he felt the blade that Thorin had given him in his pocket, drawing it from the fabric. The blade shone in the light, in the disconcerting golden glow of the place, as if keen to be of use.

“The Gods have truly cursed us all then!” he called, and he knew that his voice sounded different than it had before, stronger and bolder, though Smaug seemed not to notice, stretching out his arms, the thick muscle of them tensing in a show of strength that was wasted on Bilbo, though the monster did not know that.

“I am the gold in the darkness, the greatest of beasts! Would you really say that I have been cursed?”

Bilbo shook his head, and took a step out of the shadows, into the room properly.

“You must be,” he said, and his voice was quieter now, almost regretful, though he was not sure who it was that he felt the most sorrow for any more – the dead, left alone down here? Thror, and the weight of his mistakes? Or Smaug himself, alone and foolish, so obsessed with the thought of his own power that he had not thought to hide his heart from a man who had finally made his way to this chamber.

“Truly you must, for no other creature would live such a wretched life, here in the dark, alone but for the dead, like some great and bloody leech.”

Smaug’s tail lashed again, and suddenly he was moving closer and quicker, heading directly for Bilbo – he had known where he had been the entire time! But as his tail moved, Bilbo once more caught sight of that glow of blue, and threw himself across the floor, close enough to the great beast that he could feel the heat of his scales, and Smaug was roaring, and he thought that he might have been screaming too, for himself and for all the dead down here, for the ghosts that waited for their retribution, for all that had passed.

And then.

Then, all was dark.

 

* * *

 

 

Outside the labyrinth, most of the servants had gone. The drum beat had stopped. The body of the bull had been taken away, to be given to the priests, who would carve up the great thing and burn the bones and fat as they sang to the Gods, sang for forgiveness, sang for redemption. Only the royal family remained now, and Gandalf too, standing in the silent vigil that they kept every time this happened, waiting for the sounds that they knew would finally reach them through the echoing corridors, through the great doors.

Gandalf let out a low noise, something that might have been regret, but that could almost have been hopeful.

It was always hard to tell, with Gandalf.

Dis had her eyes closed; behind her Vili was running a hand through his hair, over and over again, rhythmically, as if he wasn’t aware that he was doing it any more. Thrain’s face was pale, and in the flickering torchlight he looked much older than he should; by his side, his wife had her eyes closed, and she was breathing slowly, as if she was trying very hard to fight back an overwhelming nausea. Fili and Kili, thanks be to the Gods, were still not old enough to take part in this ritual lamentation, were asleep upstairs, though no doubt they had crept into the same bedroom, seeking comfort: for all that they were young and foolish, they were not stupid enough not to understand what was happening here tonight.

Frerin has slumped to the ground, his arms wrapped around his bent knees, his face hidden.

From behind the doors came a sudden noise, and Thorin started, though it was not a sound that he was expecting.

Echoing through the bronze, strange and quiet, came the melancholy sound of someone singing.

It was a sad song, about the sea, and thought it began with just one voice, others came to join. Thorin realised with a start that the Athenians must have been huddling behind the door, waiting in the dark for whatever fate might come their way, singing to their end, the only comfort left to them now.

And Bilbo. He would be there, too.

The strange Prince who snuck from his room, who had so thoroughly gotten under Thorin’s skin that he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to forget him, would ever be able to sleep without remembering the way that his eyes had looked as the guards had lead him through the doors, so afraid and so defiant and so lost, too complex and terrible a combination for it to ever leave Thorin’s mind.

Thror pressed a hand against the door, his great shoulders bowed.

His face was still wet from the tears that he had not stopped shedding since the prisoners had been lead in there, hours ago now.

The room was warm, and Thorin could feel something clawing at his throat, something that could almost have been a scream.

And then, from deep below them, came a great and tearing roar, rage and pain and death rolled into this cacophony, and the singing stopped suddenly as the sound went on and on.

Thorin’s hands were clenched so hard that his palms were bleeding, though he did not realise it.

Deep in the darkness, something had happened, though he did not know what.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your wonderful comments, they are very much appreciated. Reviews are what keep an author going. Am I happy with how I've ended this fic? I'm not entirely sure. There are many other things that I feel I could have ended, but if I had then I'm sure that it would have ended up twice the size that it is now. Ah, well. I hope you all enjoy the final chapter.
> 
> ART! by [shinigami714! ](http://shinigami714.tumblr.com/post/120067610906/my-artwork-for-northerntrashs-story-the-heart-of) by [theindianwinter!](http://theindianwinter.tumblr.com/post/120377246257/the-heart-of-the-maze-by-northerntrash-its)

The stone was scraping against his arms as he scrambled, desperately, away from the lashing tail of the great beast, away from the sweeping claws, and there was a sudden and sharp pain in his side as he did not move out the way quick enough, a bloom of warmth in his side as the blood from a wound whose depth he did not know blossomed against his side, soaking into the fabric of his tunic, and Smaug let out a great a horrific roar of victory as he caught the scent of it in the air.

There were gold coins pressing into Bilbo's hands as his rolled, the symbols of cities from far away indenting against his skin, and his terror was a heavy weight in his mouth, pressing down so fully that he thought he might choke on it, on the taste of it, on the coppery blood that he thought he could feel on his tongue. Smaug was glowing even brighter now, his rage kindling some great and terrible fire deep within him, and Bilbo remembered suddenly the stories of the strange fires that some of the cities that Thror had conquered faced, fire that the stories insisted had come from nowhere, from no spark nor hand of man, and as he pressed close to Smaug’s belly for just a moment as the beast turned towards him he could feel the heat of flames, to hot that he thought that he would burn himself had he been forced to remain that close for any longer.

He lashed out with the blade, but it brushed off scales without leaving anything more than a scratch.

The heat of it was oppressive, and he could feel sweat beading on his forehead even as he got away from the bulk of the beast, scrambling over armour, bones breaking beneath his hands even as Smaug screamed in anger at Bilbo escaping his clutches, reaching out to try and snare him once more, but Bilbo was too quick, Smaug too slow after too many years of tracking his victims through his tunnels at his own pace.

And there it was! That glow, making the gold shine like tarnished silver.

The stone, so innocuous among all the other riches in this cavern.

The heart of the beast.

Smaug’s voice was loud in his ears, so loud that he wasn’t sure if he could hear anything else, and somehow he had managed to keep hold of the small blade through all this, though he isn’t sure any more how he has been that lucky, and just an hour ago he thought for certain that he was going to die, but now he is bursting with hope as much as he is with fear, and hope is a dangerous thing, keeps his mind off the beast reaching for him and on the twine in the corridor, the long line of it stretching through the darkness, only when he imagines it he sees that twine glowing red in the black of the tunnels, a gentle and warm red, leading him back to the doors, back to his kin, back to freedom, back to Thorin, who might be waiting still, behind those doors, who might have heard these roars, whose eyes are such a nicer blue than Smaug’s heart, such a gently cool colour, almost grey but for when he is looking at the sea, staring away and beyond at the world of potential that still lies out there, and it isn’t safe to be thinking this way, not when claws are scraping against the stone behind him, not when death is so close that it might be standing in the room with them, not when Smaug’s breath is so hot that he is certain that all of this gold will melt under the pressure of it, that he will sink under the surface of it, the most luxurious way to drown…

And there!

His hand finds the stone just as Smaug finds his leg, pulling him back through the gold, coin flying in the air around them, and his claws are biting so deep that Bilbo can’t help but scream even as he pulls that stone to him, raises his arm, raises the blade that Thorin gave him –

_for Thorin, for his kin, for his mother, for Prim, for Bilbo himself, for the ghosts that are trapped here as much as he is, for everything that they have lost, for Thror and all of his scars_

\- and plunges the blade into the great gem.

The darkness comes, sudden and overwhelming.

 

* * *

Outside the great bronze doors they stood transfixed as the sounds continued to come from the labyrinth, roars that might have been heralding the doom of their island, or the world itself. It was not hard to believe that the earth might suddenly rent when listening to the those sounds: Vili started at one particularly loud one, knocking over the bowl that Thror had left on the floor, the now-cold blood of the sacrificial bull spilling out, slowly seeping across the stone floor.

Thorin found himself watching, oddly detached, as it reached his feet, pooling slowly around the soles of his sandals.

And then, suddenly, everything fell silent.

They stood, and they waited, and they listened, but they heard nothing more.

Thror’s hands raised, for just a moment, as if he were about to plead to the skies, but instead they just fell, beating once against the door.

The sound was loud in the sudden silence.

“What have I done?” Thror said into that quiet, the same words that he had said so many times, on so many long and terrible nights like this, Thror’s fear and guilt open in his broken voice, in the lines around his eyes, in the slump of his shoulders.

“Grandfather,” Thorin began to say, but then Thror turned to him, everything that had once been strong in the old man broken now, his gaze lost and so very afraid, and with a low moan he fell to his knees before them all.

“Forgive me,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “There are too many families out there, I have no the years left in me to beg each of them for a forgiveness that I do not deserve. Too many lives, lost at my hand. Too much hurt, that I cannot hope to undo. And you, too, my own family- I have loved gold and I have loved power, and I have been broken from it. But now I know the truth – that the sort of power that I craved should not be for mortal men to hold. All that I want, all that I should ever have wanted, is this – you all, my family, I love you now more than I have ever loved anything, and I am a better man for it.

“But this is the legacy that I have to offer you. This is all that my years on the throne will be remembered for. Some great beast in the dark, the fear of thousands, the death toll that will grow only higher as the years pass, years that I will never see. I do not deserve your forgiveness for that, I know that well, yet still I ask, for I have always been a fool, a weak and selfish fool, and I fear a death that leaves behind nothing but resentment, and anger.”

They stood in silence for a moment, none of them knowing quite what there was to do, but then Thorin stepped forward, and his Grandfather embraced his knees, in supplication so sacred that the Gods themselves would not have been able to ignore it, and Thorin rested a hand on the silver mane of Thror’s hair.

“What you did was out of madness,” Thorin told him. “And I will not hold those actions against a person. You regret what harm you have caused, and that is all that I could have ever asked of you.”

Thrain stepped forward now, resting a hand on Thorin’s shoulder.

“When the beast appeared, when you lost control of it, when you understood what you had done, you did not send your servants to destroy it. You took that task on yourself, and you nearly died. The beast almost ripped you in half, but in turn you took its sight, enough so that we were able to restrain it whilst the maze was finished, enough that we were able to imprison it in the dark. You demanded victims from abroad to keep its anger in check, to protect us all, your family and your people alike. You are my father, and I have always loved you: you never needed forgiveness from me.”

Dis knelt before her Grandfather next, taking his head in her hands.

“You have left a burden for my sons, a burden so great that I do not know if they will be able to withstand it, for though they are strong they are gentle creatures, more suited to play than to war, though they would follow us into battle if we asked them to. And yet, despite that, I cannot despise you. Do you think we do not know the nights you spend weeping? There has never been a regret so sincere.”

Thalassa came next, and then Vili, though they said little; when Frerin came it was with a strange expression, one that was impossible to read, something closer to anger than Thorin could remember seeing on his brother’s face for a great many years, and though he rested his hand on Thror’s head he said nothing but that he would try to forgive him, and that he loved him still. Thror nodded, seeming to understand, holding no anger against his second grandson.

Gandalf was the last to come, and he shook his head at Thror’s kneeling figure.

“You give up hope too quickly, old friend,” Gandalf told him, a strange smile on his face, but before Thror could reply, there came from the great bronze doors a loud knock, bold and somehow unafraid, and a voice calling out words that none of them had ever hoped to hear.

“Smaug is dead!”

 

* * *

 

As he had plunged that blade into the stone, the great glow of Smaug’s scales had faded suddenly, to the barest light, embers of the hearth fire at the end of the evening. His grip on Bilbo’s leg had released just as quickly, leaving him panting on the piles of gold, the hot and smoking rock in his hands, the blade wedged so deep within it that he was unsure if he had the energy to pull it out once again, unsure if he would even be able to move any time soon.

But Smaug was making a strange sound, a keening whimper, and Bilbo forced himself to sit upwards, for he did not know if he was truly out of danger yet or not.

The great beast lay in his hoard, slowly dying.

Bilbo crept a little closer as Smaug’s pale, blind eyes stared at the ceiling.

“Where are you, little rabbit?” he rasped, his clawed hand flying to his chest, pressing where his heart would have been had it not been taken from him, all those decades ago. “You have felled me, but I can smell enough to know that you have not scurried off quite yet.”

“I am here,” Bilbo said, and then a strange thing happened.

Smaug – the great, monstrous creature that he was – smiled.

And it was not a cold smile, nor even was it a calculating one – for a moment his face looked almost human with how genuine it was, just how joyful it was.

“I’m sorry,” Bilbo found himself saying.

“Don’t be,” Smaug replied, “for I would have killed you and all your kin had you not slain me, and I would have delighted in ripping the skin from you, in sucking the marrow from your bones. And I would have felt no pity for you, would have felt no dread at my fate, nor even guilt at my actions.”

Bilbo bit his lip, unsure what to do.

“Thror feels the guilt of what he has done,” Smaug said, his voice barely above a whisper now. “I know that he regrets his actions: he comes often to the doors to tell me that, did you know that? No, I don’t suppose that you do. But I have often wondered if that is not the real curse that the Gods have laid upon the both of us: Thror has his guilt, and I have to live with the knowledge that I am a monster, and that without my heart I could never be anything more. I will never regret what I have done, will never plead for forgiveness, will die being as much a creature of evil and destruction as I have ever been.”

“Can you really be so?” Bilbo asked, as the glow from his scales grew even dimmer, so that they were left almost in the same darkness that he had been in before he had reached the heart of the maze. “Can you really be so singularly evil, and nothing more, if you know all of that?”

Smaug smiled again, and it was strange, and soft.

“Yes,” he replied, quite simply. “Not having a choice does not make what I have done any less monstrous, little rabbit.”

And Bilbo did not know what to say to that, so instead he remained silent, and sat at Smaug’s side as the embers of his glow reached the point where they might not have been there at all. The blue shine of his stone was all that was left, a faint flicker of light in the darkness, and despite himself Bilbo began to weep, though he was no longer sure who it was that he was crying for.

But, perhaps that was alright.

“I think you’re wrong,” Bilbo whispered to the darkness.

Smaug laughed, a quiet, sad sound.

“Thank you,” he answered, the last words that he would ever say, and with one last breath the greatest and most terrible creature left on this world passed away, to what end Bilbo did not know. Was there a place in the Underworld for creatures such as him? He had no answer, but for a moment he thought he felt something brush against his face, something warm and gentle, though it might just have been his imagination.

It took him some time to find the right tunnel again in the darkness, even longer to find the twine that he had tucked away, but eventually he did, limping all the way. There was blood dripping on the floor after him, he thought, and he took the time to rip as much fabric from his tunic to bind his wounds with as he could, before following his long and rambling course through the labyrinth back again, colder and sadder now than he had been before.

And he could barely smile when he heard his kin’s cries of relief when he called out to them, could barely feel anything at all, unsure of anything but the weight of a dead heart in his hands, the pain in his limbs, the taste of blood in his mouth, and he banged on the door and called out, suddenly afraid that it would not be enough: but after a moment of silent there came the great sound of bars being lifted, and the door drew suddenly open.

The light was almost blinding, there was blood on the floor, and the faces of his kin were pale and scared around him.

It took him a moment to take it in, but there were the royal family, Thror kneeling, the rest of them standing, staring, looking as exhausted and ruined as he himself was feeling right now.

The Athenians poured out around him, but he fell to his knees, dropping the cold stone heart in the blood before him, and he stared at the old King, at the strange flicker of hope-fear-pain in his eyes, and offered the closes thing to a smile that he could.

“He is dead,” he said again, and then Thorin was rushing towards him, falling to his knees in front of Bilbo’s side, pulling him into an embrace so warm that Bilbo felt as if he had been very suddenly brought back to life again.

 

* * *

 

Bilbo had not had a chance to see the official throne room before, but now he was here, standing before a great stone throne flanked with painted griffins, bathed and clean but somehow still feeling wrong, though he was unsure now what was really the matter – whether there was anything specific left for him to feel at all.

And sat on that throne, defeated but smiling, sat King Thror.

He asked them for a forgiveness that he said they could never give; he lauded Bilbo as a hero. The guards had been sent into the labyrinth, following the thread that Bilbo had let drop behind him again, and they had found that chamber, the piles of gold, and they had gathered the bones of all those who had been lost, the bones which already they were digging graves for along the clifftops, where they might look out across the sea, perhaps to the lands from which they had once come.

They had found too the smoking bones and scraps of flesh that was all that was left of the great and mighty Smaug, scales scattered around his remains, as if he had simply fallen apart once the light of him had died away, and at Bilbo’s insistence they had brought them out into the light too. They were not to be buried: somehow Bilbo was sure that the laws that governed the spirits of men did not apply to creatures such as him, and so they had been burned, on a great funeral pyre, the smoke blackening the sky above them.

He thought that Smaug would have appreciated the fire, the chance to once more be free.

All that was left of him was one small scale that was now tucked into Bilbo’s pocket, the sheen of it turning red-copper-gold as you turned it in the light. It was beautiful, and it was terrible, and there was a part of him that wanted to throw it from the cliff tops to be lost forever in the sea, but he kept it anyway. He did not think that it would do any good to forget all that had happened here.

Thror asked him what he could do to make up for all that had happened to them, and Bilbo had just shaken his head.

“It was not my children who were lost,” he reminded Thror. “Nor do I have the authority to answer on their behalf. But I speak for my mother, Queen Belladonna of Athens, when I ask for peace between us, not the anger of retribution: we have never been a war-like people, have only every wanted harmony and happiness.

“We,” he told the King, finally smiling a little, “value good cheer and food above all else, really. And what I would really like to do right now is to go home, back to where I belong, and give my mother good news after so many decades of ill.”

Thror had nodded at that.

“Then my last order,” he said, ignoring the way that his family suddenly looked between each other in surprise. “My last order as King, will be to send my oldest grandson back with you to Athens, if you would be willing to have him. I think it is time that Crete send a token of their good will, and if he should chose to remain in Athens, or to travel with the agreement of the Queen, then I would wish him well.”

He turned to Thorin then, to his oldest Grandson, to the first of his kin to step forward and accept his apology.

“You will live with the royal family, as so many Princes have done before, and they will teach you these ways of peace. You will harbour the bonds of friendship between our island and their city, as I should once have done.” He smiled, and there was some sudden levity in his gaze, some hint of laughter. “And I think that you would not be particularly unwilling to go, but know that if you really would not wish to leave, then I will not force you.”

Thorin’s eyes glanced, quickly, at Bilbo, and he shook his head.

“I would be proud to go,” he answered, and Thror smiled.

“I suspected as much,” he said, and Bilbo found that the tips of his ears were growing red, that there was a kernel of excitement sparking in his chest where moments before it had only been filled with a circumspect dread, and a sorrow that he had not understood.

He had thought, once, that he might never have the opportunity to get to know Thorin better, that their chance to see what it was that lay between them would never have been, but it seemed that now, thanks to a cold stone and a bundle of twine, that they might be able to, after all. Bilbo could go home, and Thorin could leave, and even now Bilbo was thinking of that sea journey, of the chance to talk to Thorin, to tell him all the stories that he had ever heard; all the years afterwards too, to show him everything that he had ever loved.

Thorin stepped away from the dais where the rest of the royal line were standing, taking a step closer to Bilbo as he seemed to steel some resolve inside himself, and then he came even closer, and took Bilbo’s hand, lifting it to his mouth and pressing a kiss against the back of it, the scratch of his dark beard gentle against Bilbo’s skin.

“I have never met,” he said quietly, so that only Bilbo could hear him, something of a promise in his tone. “Someone so loyal to his kin, so honourable in keeping their word, so willing to accept fate as you.”

Bilbo’s ears were definitely turning red now, but he found that he could not look away from Thorin’s gaze, so sincere, so full of anticipation and joy and _freedom,_ a freedom that this bitter experience had earned not just for Thorin but for all of his family, too.

“And I have never known anyone so brave, either. If you would have me, I would return with you, to your house and your books and your city, to the olive tree growing outside your window, and watch it grow a little taller.”

Bilbo smiled a little: he couldn’t remember at what point in that evening sat in the courtyard he had told Thorin about that tree, which was strange, because he had never told anyone about it before, and he thought that the memory might have stuck a little firmer in his mind. And though there was a sadness in his chest still he pulled Thorin’s hand back to his own mouth, to kiss it as gently as Thorin had just kissed his own.

“You would be most welcome, Prince of Crete,” he told Thorin, “and I’m glad that the first of your adventures would be to my city. To my home.”

They might have stood that way for quite some time, smiling at each other, but Thror cleared his throat, and they glanced away from each other, from that sweet and unexpected intimacy that had grown so quickly between them, back to the King.

“And with that,” Thror said, his voice quieter now, “I would give up my crown, and my throne.”

He took that great crown of silver from his brow, and turned to Thrain, resting it instead of his hair, still more dark than grey, with a smile that for the first time in so many years seemed truly happy, and without hurt.

“I wish you many years of rule, and peace, and prosperity,” he said, more to his son than to the rest of the room, and then his eyes turned to each of his kin, one by one. “And know that I love you. Hail the King!”

They echoed his words, and if Thrain’s eyes seemed a little misty then none of them were willing to comment.

“What are you doing?” Frerin asked, stepping forwards, frowning, and Thror smiled at him.

“I am leaving,” he said, waving a hand when Thrain began to protest. “I do not deserve to stay. So instead I will leave. My greatest mistake is dead, and now I will live out the rest of my days by the sea, knowing that you are all well and content, and try to find a peace inside myself that I have never had a chance to know before.”

He glanced around at them all.

“But before that I shall take a ship, and go to each city that my armies ever conquered, and return to each King or Queen the crown that I once took from them. It is not enough, but, well. It is the least that I can do, I think.”

Frerin nodded, and then his face twisted, and he threw his arms around his Grandfather.

“And I will come with you,” Frerin promised. “Perhaps in time, we can undo enough of what our family has done that we might be forgiven.”

Bilbo looked away as the family began to weep, quietly and happily, the curse of their line finally lifted.

 

* * *

 

He watched Thorin say goodbye to his family on the docks in the grey light before dawn some days later, and wondered to himself if one day he might be able to come back to this strange and beautiful place again, to see the pink sands of the shore through something of a veil of grief. One day, perhaps he might, though he was already sure that the fear that he had fought might still grip him too tightly to contemplate it for some years to come.

He was surprised when they turned to him next, and embraced him as firmly as they had done Thorin, though he had only really known them a scant couple of days. It was Frerin who whispered a quiet goodbye in his ear, and Dis a genuine thanks, and Fili who asked him to look after his Uncle Thorin. He replied to each of them in turn, embraced them in return, and finally turned to bow low first at Thror, and then finally at Thrain, who fought through the grief of saying goodbye to his son enough to smile in return.

Thorin glanced across at him as he straightened up again, and smiled, and Bilbo wondered if he was as afraid at the thought of leaving his family as Bilbo suspected him to be.

But wasn’t that the true meaning of bravery, after all? Not to stop all fear, but to press on, despite it.

Before he left, Thror pressed one last gift to his hand, and Bilbo smiled to see the crown that had once belonged to his mother, as she had described it to him many times, sheaves of wheat and stars cut into the polished metal.

The ship cast off before the sun had risen, and Bilbo left Thorin to watch the only island he had ever know grow smaller, and then finally disappear over the horizon. It was only then that Thorin came to him, at the other end of the ship, the wind in the sails and a fine spray on their skin that didn’t feel anywhere near as bitter as it had done the last time that Bilbo had undertaken the journey from one place to the other.

“Will you miss Crete?” he asked Thorin, who shrugged a little, and caught Bilbo’s hand in his.

“I will,” he said, but there was something of a smile about his stoic mouth, some reserved and quiet joy that Bilbo wondered about, wondered if he could find more about, if they could somehow together make it all the brighter. “But I am ready now, to see more of what the world has to offer to me.”

Bilbo nodded, and Thorin’s arm pressed against his.

“As long,” he said, some humour in his voice. “As you don’t have any plans to abandon me on an island along the way.”

Bilbo laughed at that, a bright and sudden sound against the roar of the sea, the slap of the waves against the side of the ship.

“No plans,” he promised, as Thorin’s thumb stroked along the back of his hand. No plans like that, of any sort, no plans other than to take Thorin back to Athens, to show him his sprawling city, the cries of the wheeling birds overhead, the flowers that grew along the shoreline. No plans but to take him home.

He squeezed Thorin’s hand, quite gently, as if to reassure him of that fact.

The sun began to rise slowly on the horizon, bloody and engorged and beautiful despite it, and Bilbo reached with his other hand, to find that scale again, to stroke it gently.

What would he show Thorin first he Athens, he thought to himself. The great temple on the hill, the paintings in the palace, the bustle of the marketplace? He wasn’t sure, and in that moment he realised that it didn’t really matter, not any more. They were going home, to a city now safe, to give his mother the news that she need no longer carry the burden of the reaping, and that was all that he had ever wanted.

They stood their together, in the light of the rising sun, and after a moment he pressed a cautious kiss to the corner of Thorin’s mouth, light and quick but enough to make Thorin glance at him in surprise, before his face softened, and he smiled in return.

It was a beginning, Bilbo thought to himself, as much as it was an ending.

Weeks later, they would reach Athens together, and many years after that they would leave again, bound for more adventures, to see more of the world, together. But that, perhaps, is another story.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Welcome Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4304718) by [Andalusa93](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andalusa93/pseuds/Andalusa93)




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